Tamiya vs Associated tolerances

[Saito2]

I've spent the last week going through a used Associated RC10 Classic. It was clear from the get-go that the previous owner had made some errors during assembly. Now I know from my history, that the old RC10 was not so great in the tolerances department. Not loose and sloppy, but rather tight and binding. The gearbox specifically was a nightmare of burrs on gear teeth, out-of-round idler gears and spine plates that needed egged out for smooth operation. The re-release was supposed to be much better but I still had to tear it apart several times to get it rotating freely. In my situation, the gearcase was rubbing on the steel outdrive gears and needed clearanced. While it was a fun change of pace, it made me love the Tamiya building experience all the more.

My question is why, in the gearbox's case, can Tamiya make bind-free transmissions and Associated could/can (or in the case of the Classic only) not. The old Stealths were good transmissions. Is it the materials they're made out of? Is Tamiya ABS more precise to mold over Associated nylon? I'm leaving out suspension issues as I know Tamiyas go together great but tend to be a little sloppy as a result. The tighter Associated suspensions can be carefully freed up leading to a tighter overall assembly. This is mainly a materials or quality issue. Associated certainly used great designs and tough materials, it's just the tolerances that are sketchy (and I'm not speaking of their new (B4, etc.) products which appear to be high quality.

[WillyChang]

Welcome to the Classic building experience! 

Although they've modernised the manual too much  BiTD AE manuals were mainly typewritten text and only a handful of handrawn line sketches to guide you... if it's your first AE car it was often quite daunting. 

Yeah AE expects you to "finish" the parts yourself to make them fit perfectly.

Like a Resin static model kit vs an Airfix snap-together kit

That's why proper race cars carry spareparts in whole component form - whole gearbox, whole engine etc... because the individual parts inside cannot be interchanged. 

T is expert in precision plastic moulding whereas AE has much lower volumes... although afaik all the Classic molds were remade fresh, it's squirted out with modern machinery etc

Classic was a fun build, even with modern manual.

[Saito2]

I did find a rather lively discussion over on RC10talk.com. Some folks didn't care about the quality and were simply happy to have the RC10 Classic at all. The thoughts being that, these tolerance issues were put there to replicate the old building experience. Others noted, as you did, the parts  were made with new molds. They seemed to think that its just poor or lax quality control on Associated part to have these poor tolerances in 2016 with new tooling vs the 1985 original (which may have been excusable back then). 

[WillyChang]

I think the Classic got lucky and most of the issues can be solved with time, patience and needle files  haha I even cut out the jellybean holes in the wheels

whereas I hear the WC car had some worse issues like layshaft too short. 

[speedy_w_beans]

Associated is owned by Thunder Tiger; this is where all that Apex and Rival stuff comes from.  I wouldn't expect the same experience today as when Associated was an independent company in the 80s.