Afternoon , thinking of getting 10 year old son a 4×4 RC Nitro car to use on the local common, that’s a huge area of short grass thanks to the sheep, don`t know anything about them just remember the joys of receiving a Porsche ,that ate batteries 😥 , at a similar age from Father Christmas via Tandy and absolutely loving it !!! what do I have to spend to get something reliable and bullet proof and are they high maintenance? cheers in advance for any help.

They are flippin’ loud, especially if they’re not yours.

I was ‘into these’ a few years back – had a few models.
The best was a Traxxas Revo 3.3cc.

My advice would be to look into brushless electric.
Basically the nitro car WAS fun, but in a ‘can I set it up and get it going well’ kind of way.
I think a kid would get bored having to retune for different weather, having to warm it up etc…
Also, cheap they are not (initial purchase was about £350, plush another £140 for 2.4ghz radio kit…)
If you get a ‘proper’ one, you’ll ‘play’ with it properly – this means huge jumps, fast crashes etc (it weighs a few kg and goes 40mph – no joke!). I was most likely spending about £10-20 on repairs on most trips out with it….

They are great fun, but be warned…

DrP

are they high maintenance?

Yes, very.

Mine ate itself regularly and was very fiddly to keep running, with the jetting being very sensitive and needing setting regularly to less than 1/8th of a turn.

Need a massive area, flat gets boring quick but jumps get expensive!

Very High Maintenance! You need to learn a lot about tuning, LSN, HSN, Idle… Get the tune in, then tomorrow you need to re-tune as the pressure/air temp isn’t the same. But this all part of the fun for Nitro, tuning, fiddling, fitting a new clutch, playing with the oil weights, etc.

Bloody hell are they good fun though!

Another vote for them being expensive, I have a Hyper 8.5 pro and I think I spent nearly £1k by the end of the summer a few years back. 😳

I dreaded to think of the cost of all my ‘playing’ with mine!!
I could clear the first set of jumps at Bournemouth BMX track with it – that’s no short distance!!

DrP

Cheers lads for the advice, Jesus they are a cash cow!!! Think I will have a ‘re think as I’m time poor for cyclingas it is this sounds like it will take even mmire of my limited time, might get him a mark one mini to do up for seven years, sounds cheaper!!!!

I’d think about a rock crawler, they are very entertaining without having to give them a battering and he could play with it on his own in the garden.

i still have my thunder tiger eb4 s3, long chassis conversion, cnc shock towers, RB ws7 worlds engine, RB tuned pipe KO propo digital servos, jc concepts shell about a grands worth all told thats without all the starter boxes and tools etc thats needed to race them for a day. cheep they aint if you want to go racing .

It does get expensive by the looks , more of a dads bit of fun than a 10 year olds!! Will look for the crawler later!!! Still fancy one form of rc car for him.

Think I have reached a decision , its looking like a Traxxas Summit VXL 1/16 scale brushless, does anyone have any experience with this model?

http://www.oople.com/

I found nitro a nightmare, the 2 stroke petrols are sweet,

the new lipo batteries have a better runtime and a lot faster

I had one but got rid of it, there was hardly an outing when something didn’t vibrate off, break or seize. I spent more time fixing it than driving it.

It is great fun when it is going though.

http://www.horizonhobby.co.uk/autoonline/j1-vaterra/j1-twin-hammers.html

Check out the twin hammers, slow touquey rockcrawling and fast stuff in one.