RC4WD Miller Rock Racer

[Tamiyastef]

Saw this announced on YouTube today. Looks ideal as a "walking truck".What do you guys think?

I have no personal experience with RC4WD cars mostly because of the price and I heard several people complain about the price/quality ratio.

 

[ad456]

I think RC4WD are at a point where they are trying to address the quality issues from what I’ve seen on the Chevy Scottsdale reviews. I’ve got a Blazer and I love it but it’s not a crawler, definitely more a scaler/dollhouse car imo. I’ve had various other bits over the years and some have been hopeless and others great.

I’ve been looking at the Miller buggy and it looks smart but it’s not really for me, I’d end up overpowering and killing it. Price and features is cracking for the price though, hopefully the truck would hold up to intended use. 

[Mad Ax]

It certainly looks the part, and I'm sure it would be fine as a walking companion.  I couldn't comment on how it would hold up under proper crawling / rock racing conditions, I guess we'll have to wait until it's been properly tested in the wild to see how it stacks up against competitors.

You're definitely getting good looks for the money but it feels expensive for a runner.  I don't really look at big budget trucks like that, so maybe I'm missing the point, but I'm sure there are cheaper ways of getting a rock racer that will follow you along a walking trail - although you'll probably have to do more custom stuff to make them look scale.

I agree with @ad456 on quality - some RC4WD stuff is really top-notch, looks great and very well made, other stuff can be cheap rubbish, some stuff looks great but hasn't been well thought-out (like the ARB axles with the horrendous scrub radius).

[Tamiyastef]

It is appealing to me because of all the features combined with the scale appearance.

With unlocked diffs and low gear 2wd it won't use much of the battery while you take it along with you on walks/hikes. When terrain gets more demanding you can switch to 4wd and even lock the diff/diffs to get over almost pure "crawler" obstacles.

While a dedicated Crawler can struggle with the long drives on walking paths in between the more demanding sessions.

As I also really like the building part of this hobby I'm not sure between the trx4 kit and this. Price point is about the same but you get Traxxas electronics (not the best reputation -especially the micro servo's) and no body. 

I once was stupid enough to calculate what my CC-01 had cost me and that was more than this or the trx4 kit... but it had working lights and a winch and lots of enjoyment in building and tinkering. 

The fact this comes RTR only really bothers me.

[ad456]

I would say that any RTR does generally need a good check over at the least, if not a rebuild in case it was assembled on a Friday afternoon. My blazer came home fine but I was warned by plenty of people that there would be no grease in it or need shimmed to stop it eating itself and other things. It turned out not to be the case but glad I took notice and checked as it might have been expensive if I hadn’t. 
 

RC does tend to be a game of modding a truck to sort the weaknesses that any model has and I don’t really believe that any company isn’t guilty of it to some degree, wether it be to come in at a price point or just to make more money. 
 

I’m definitely gonna keep an eye out for what people do with this truck as it looks smart and does have plenty of tricks out of the box, I’d just like a hair more speed in high gear. 

[Mad Ax]

I've just watched RCDriver's video on this, and it looks like a cool rig with plenty of features out the box.  Switchable 2/4wd, switchable diffs and a 2-speed transmission are definitely features that would make a long-distance walking rig more user-friendly, but they're not essential.  I did over 8 miles with my custom rig last week, which has a very low single gear, full-time 4wd and locked diffs.  I got thru 3 2200mAh packs before it finally gave up.  Tonight I'll be taking a bigger-wheel rig out.  I'll see how far I get with 3 4250mAh packs.

TBH, I like this more as a kind of crossover between a crawler and a buggy.  16mph might not be that fast but it looks like it's fun to drive at that speed, it rips up the ground and would probably take some scale jumps pretty well.  I think you could have some fun short course races with rigs like this, or raids over a less technical fixed course.  I'm not sure how something from the budget end, like an FTX Mauler, would handle that kind of use.

Slam it into low range, lock the diffs and engage 4 wheel drive, and suddenly it'll do the technical stuff too.

All the scale realism stuff looks great but as RCDriver mentions, some of it is falling off after one run - all that scale stuff is worthless if it gets lots on the trails.

And I think it's a shame there's no kit version - not yet, anyway.  Maybe worth hanging around to see if something gets announced - the licenced body is cool but I'd want to do my own take on it.

[Tamiyastef]

34 minutes ago, Mad Ax said:

want to do my own take

I second that  I don't do much boxart these days.

[taffer]

It looks a nice licensed vehicle and good value when all the features are added up.

Access to internals seems to take time and the body panels have a couple of weak spots on the mounting points but as it's not a speed vehicle, it should be ok.

Its in my consideration sphere!

[OnTheTrail]

Remote locking diffs?   Oooo.....hard to say no to this one just for that reason.   

Luv me sum diff lockers!

[87lc2]

Looks great, but unless RC4WD has decided to use metal rather than butter it will be junk like most other stuff they manufacture.  Real shame, they have some very nice looking parts/trucks but the material choice/manufacturing is just downright poor a lot of the time.