Tamiya QD

[dogzboz]

Are they any good, just a thought as I was thinking of getting one for my young son to get him started.

Rob

[miramar]

New generation QD's (the 46300-series, those currently available) are good, whereas the models in the old series (46000-series) vary. The completely new 46020 Trail Master QD has nothing to do with the other cars in the 46000-series, so I don't know about it, but I expect it to be good.

I had a lot to do with QD-models from their introduction in 1988/1989 untill I quit working for the Norwegian Tamiya distributor in 2000. All the buggies were OK, and customers had very little trouble with them. The trucks were good as well, but at first they had too stiff wires between the motor and the circuit board, which broke after relatively short time. The motor moves with the gearbox just like in any Grasshopper-series car, thus constantly flexing the wires. This flaw is of course easy to rectify with more flexible wires. The first trucks had integrated battery boxes which actually worked quite fine. Later they got separate battery boxes, which at first seemed like a good idea, but there were constantly contact problems with them, and it was quite common to see melted battery boxes and chassises. We usually soldered in custommade battery packs instead of the battery boxes. Otherwise we had very few problems with the QD-cars. A Broken servosaver now and then, electronics damaged by moisture. That's about all.

I don't know about the difference in price between 46300-series QD's and a TL01 in your area, but in Norway and Germany (where I have my background) the difference isn't all that big, and since a TL01 is much faster handles better and has potential for tuning, I would suggest getting a TL01 instead. Unless you buy a TL01 in the RTR XB-series, you get the chance to build the model for and together with your son too!