When buying a buggy kit, what spares do you carry (if any!)

[toyolien 4002]

 

 

I'm hovvering over the buy button on an Avante Black. Never built an Avante before, well aware of it's short comings, but I think it's just one of the best looking buggies ever made. My question is, as this will be a runner (occasional, but a runner nonetheless), what spares would you carry to see me well into the future?

With my other buggy runners I just carry suspension arms and a gearbox case or two. But, it seems that the Avante is made up of lots of very specidic parts. Avante runners help!

[Rb4276 788]

I have tons of spares for both my avante and egress. I would say two of the most important are the front gearbox  case and the ball ends for the suspension. I cracked my gearbox case once and bent 3 or 4 of the ball ends. The ball ends are pricey ever since covid. I bought a set of 16 from a breaker off of ebay for like $20 years ago. 

[Kowalski86 2178]

I cant give an answer specific to the Egress, but for off-road runners I usually carry spare a-arms, shock towers, and wheels/tires (usually I have a set for pavement and another for dirt).

Generally I don't run anything unless if I can get parts from the manufacturer reliably, or if beat up second hand cars are cheap and widely available.

Buying from "breakers" can get expensive, since if a kit randomly goes up in price they have to raise their prices to compensate.

[Willy iine 17939]

I bought an entire 2nd kit as spare..  mine is the standard Avante rere.

[alvinlwh 5292]

Some will buy one for running, one for shelf queen, one for BNIB and one for spares.

[markbt73 4931]

Absolutely nothing. If it breaks, and I can't buy replacement parts, I'll make something that will work, and if that's not possible, I'll break it down for parts and/or turn it into something else. I don't want to have a bunch of extra parts lying around in case something breaks. I'll keep my overhead low, and take my chances.

Edit - this applies to new purchases. That doesn't mean I don't keep leftover parts from restorations as spares.

[Kpowell911 1233]

2 hours ago, toyolien said:

 

 

I'm hovvering over the buy button on an Avante Black. Never built an Avante before, well aware of it's short comings, but I think it's just one of the best looking buggies ever made. My question is, as this will be a runner (occasional, but a runner nonetheless), what spares would you carry to see me well into the future?

With my other buggy runners I just carry suspension arms and a gearbox case or two. But, it seems that the Avante is made up of lots of very specidic parts. Avante runners help!

Shame you missed the £299 deal at MB recently.

Ive not ran mine yet, and Im far from a Tamiya connoisseur but I thoroughly enjoyed the build, was completely unique to anything Ive ever done. Ive still got the shell to do mind.

Im tempted to run mine so spares wise Im intrigued to know what comes of this thread

[Twinfan 765]

36 minutes ago, Kpowell911 said:

Shame you missed the £299 deal at MB recently.

Blimey, that was a steal!  I thought I did well getting one for £349 from Tamico.

Mind you, I did OK on getting the pre-painted TD2 Astute from MB for £149  

[Kpowell911 1233]

40 minutes ago, Twinfan said:

Blimey, that was a steal!  I thought I did well getting one for £349 from Tamico.

Mind you, I did OK on getting the pre-painted TD2 Astute from MB for £149  

https://www.rccarshop.co.uk/TA47390-TAMIYA-Avante-2011-Black-Special
 

Current bargain!

[Twinfan 765]

Good, but not £299 good!  I wonder how many they sold at that price...

[Kowalski86 2178]

2 hours ago, alvinlwh said:

Some will buy one for running, one for shelf queen, one for BNIB and one for spares.

Some have a bit too much space to fill up!

[Kpowell911 1233]

1 hour ago, Twinfan said:

Good, but not £299 good!  I wonder how many they sold at that price...

I was shocked not to see it posted on here, i saw a link posted on Facebook and pounced

[Twinfan 765]

5 minutes ago, Kpowell911 said:

I was shocked not to see it posted on here, i saw a link posted on Facebook and pounced

Given that they still have some, at a higher price, they must have had a bunch and they needed to shift a few to clear the decks a bit.  I'm sure that's why they blew out the TD2 I got.

[Willy iine 17939]

I also buy a bunch of wheels and tires.. but for my Avante I don't drive that much so I think I only have a few sets.  

[naturbo2000 994]

On 9/21/2023 at 3:42 PM, Rb4276 said:

two of the most important are the front gearbox  case and the ball ends for the suspension. I cracked my gearbox case once and bent 3 or 4 of the ball ends. The ball ends are pricey ever since covid. I bought a set of 16 from a breaker off of ebay for like $20 years ago. 

Same story here. Racing indoors and I hit a post - ripped the front suspension clean off. Fortunately only broke one ball joint, but they're mighty expensive. If I'd seen the £299 deal, I'd have bought it for spare parts...

Oh and a spare bottle of threadlock. It turns out even the upper arms need it too as I had one unscrew itself while driving.

[Saito2 6033]

I'm building a second Avante this winter hopefully. Honestly, I only bought a spare front gearcase. The combination of having the damper mounts and lower front arm mounts molded into the case sides led me to it. At least Tamiya spec'd better plastics for these parts and, being an Avante (vs an Egress) the dampers mount low without the added leverage of a tall shock tower working against it.

But, remembering the potentially fast wearing ball joints from yesteryear (and the unsightly covers Tamiya offered as a hop-up) I've decided to convert the arms to the Egress/Vanquish/2001 arrangement. They're not as sexy looking but I never broke a lower front arm nor rear trailing arm in my old Vanquish, both being made from a more robust and resilient PA plastic. I will also be running alloy front/rear hubs. This removes all the hard brittle plastics from the suspension.

To quote an old magazine, slippage and breakage seemed to be these cars' forte BITD. The ball joints would wear and pop off, metal rods would bend and the center ball diff would unscrew itself on occasion. The old grey uprights would shatter and even the second variation wasn't all that tough. The new gold ones are awesome. I wish we had them back then. I recall a lot of frustrated racers who bought these back then and prices dropped like a brick, some shops blowing them out for as low as $99. Today is a different story. Tamiya did improve some aspects and and many of these are driven with respect vs being thrown headlong into the fray to duke it out with Optima Mids, Cats and Yokes. Flawed or not, I love this series of cars.

[toyolien 4002]

Thank you all the your replies. I'm so close to buying one. I love the look of the Avante (in particular this Black edition), but all my cars are most certainly runners, so I'm just weighing up which spares to buy... I seem to take ages to decide to buy a kit these days....

@Willy iine I had thought about just buying another kit for spares, but it seems there's only one or two parts that are prone to wear/break, so having a whole kit doesn't make much sense (to me anyway).

[Willy iine 17939]

5 minutes ago, toyolien said:

Thank you all the your replies. I'm so close to buying one. I love the look of the Avante (in particular this Black edition), but all my cars are most certainly runners, so I'm just weighing up which spares to buy... I seem to take ages to decide to buy a kit these days....

@Willy iine I had thought about just buying another kit for spares, but it seems there's only one or two parts that are prone to wear/brake, so having a whole kit doesn't make much sense (to me anyway).

Yeah, I mean it's really up to you,  I drive my cars so there is potential my electronics could go haywire and crash..then body or decal could get damaged, etc something minor but annoying.   I have been having some interferrence issues on my FHSS protocol at times, but only on receivers with wire antennas..  always good to have a back up for me.. 

Its like each time I only buy one kit, something unexpected happens to the car... including liking the chassis more than I originally expected, but no more available years from now.. some cars go unbuilt for years.

[toyolien 4002]

5 minutes ago, Willy iine said:

Yeah, I mean it's really up to you,  I drive my cars so there is potential my electronics could go haywire and crash..then body or decal could get damaged, etc something minor but annoying.   I have been having some interferrence issues on my FHSS protocol at times, but only on receivers with wire antennas..  always good to have a back up for me.. 

Its like each time I only buy one kit, something unexpected happens to the car... including liking the chassis more than I originally expected, but no more available years from now.. some cars go unbuilt for years.

Yep, I get that. I guess the absolute worst case for me is that something breaks that I can't get, then it'll become a reluctant shelfer. So perhaps, it's better for me to build and drive one and risk that rather than not getting one at all....

[DTSCB 85]

1 hour ago, toyolien said:

Thank you all the your replies. I'm so close to buying one. I love the look of the Avante (in particular this Black edition), but all my cars are most certainly runners, so I'm just weighing up which spares to buy... I seem to take ages to decide to buy a kit these days....

@Willy iine I had thought about just buying another kit for spares, but it seems there's only one or two parts that are prone to wear/break, so having a whole kit doesn't make much sense (to me anyway).

The problem is when you break a "kit special part" that was really only ever offered in the kit... you're skunked. 

If you have time to run it a lot while the parts are still available, you might be a good feel for what you need.  If the kit is fading away in availability,  it is your best choice.

 

In my case, the Top Force Evo, a lot of spares, are much cheaper in the kit vs by themself.  But, it has a lot of special hop up parts. 

[Willy iine 17939]

3 minutes ago, DTSCB said:

The problem is when you break a "kit special part" that was really only ever offered in the kit... you're skunked. 

If you have time to run it a lot while the parts are still available, you might be a good feel for what you need.  If the kit is fading away in availability,  it is your best choice.

 

In my case, the Top Force Evo, a lot of spares, are much cheaper in the kit vs by themself.  But, it has a lot of special hop up parts. 

That is very true.   Especially on a limited edition..

But again, everyone is different and have different priorities, so it's all good.   👍

[Sogogi 2418]

I've never had those special kit yet, but if I do, I would get another kit (so that I know I have extra of everything) + parts that wear a lot (suspension related stuff, gear box stuff). 

[Rinskie 284]

Maybe it's just me but if I had an Avante/Egress or VQS, I wouldn't run it hard enough to break anything. I've eyed them for a while myself but I know me. I'd baby the snot out of it because what to is where as something like a Boomerang or any other Shot would get ponded on pretty hard. Hard to justify the cost when I know I wouldn't let it eat. 

[Kpowell911 1233]

2 hours ago, toyolien said:

Thank you all the your replies. I'm so close to buying one. I love the look of the Avante (in particular this Black edition), but all my cars are most certainly runners, so I'm just weighing up which spares to buy... I seem to take ages to decide to buy a kit these days....

@Willy iine I had thought about just buying another kit for spares, but it seems there's only one or two parts that are prone to wear/break, so having a whole kit doesn't make much sense (to me anyway).

Egress Black is On offer at Tamico if that helps?

Avante Black is on offer at MB Models

https://www.rccarshop.co.uk/TA47390-TAMIYA-Avante-2011-Black-Special

[toyolien 4002]

18 minutes ago, Kpowell911 said:

Egress Black is On offer at Tamico if that helps?

Avante Black is on offer at MB Models

https://www.rccarshop.co.uk/TA47390-TAMIYA-Avante-2011-Black-Special

Avante Black is same price as the offer price on the Egress Black at Tamico so would probably just get one from there.... still deciding