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Pablo68

Paying overs

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Ok, lets hear your stories where you bought something RC and then after looking at it when you got it home you realised you'd paid too much.

In my case, I've picked up a large scale buggy, one I've wanted for a while, a tad cheaper than I usually see them. On looking it over I'm really thinking that I've paid too much.
I just keep finding things on it that are fairly worn, or worn and not repaired well, screws that shouldn't be where they are, etc.

I blame myself, but buying things on Ebay can be this way sometimes. Going to keep it and fix it up, as that's the kind of thing I do anyway.

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You will find this is the case for many an unseen purchase . I think we have all fallen foul of the dud eBay purchase or similar , but on a positive , if it is something you can work with and really want and parts reasonably easy to come by , then it's 'crack on' as far as I'm concerned .

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For me that is why I don't buy used rc cars any more, most of time there is something wrong with them and when you have bought all the parts to fix them, it was cheaper to buy a new one, I burnt my hands a couple times on used rc carsĀ  for me no more.

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34 minutes ago, dannymulder said:

For me that is why I don't buy used rc cars any more, most of time there is something wrong with them and when you have bought all the parts to fix them, it was cheaper to buy a new one, I burnt my hands a couple times on used rc carsĀ  for me no more.

If it is something like a Grasshopper or low end car , then yes , it could be cheaper to buy new , but for a hard to come by model - or your own holy grail and you have patience to restore it , it is sometimes worth taking the plunge . I usually buy a used RC with the belief that there are things ( usually the common problems ) to fix and figure that into my buy or don't buy thinking / budget on the car

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As a collector, i have knowingly paid over the odds to get the item or model that i want, but on the flip side, i have also done some great deals where i have got the item or model for a really good price, so it evens itself out in the end.

I think if you are buying to make money then it could be a problem, but if like me you do it for the love of it, you will pay whatever you feel it takes to get it in your collection.

J

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I get it if you collecting cars, and buy cars that you can only buy used because they do not make them any more or if you want a original.

But I do not collecting rc cars and I have nothing with nostalgia of rcĀ cars, I only buy rc cars that I like, to run them and bash them so for me it is most of the time better to buy a new carĀ then I know every thing is oke thenĀ a used one where I have to spend money one to make it good again that cost me more then a new one.

In the past I had bought some used rc cars that looked good on the foto but in real time there was so much wrong with them, little hairline cracks in almost every part and a lot of worn stuff you cant see on a foto, the only thing I could do with it was trow it in the bin.

Ā 

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I've had a few but two that's sticks in my mind was a fair few years ago way before the re-release years I bought a topforce evolution very lightly used with a spare set of orange wheels and tyres for the princely sum of Ā£150 but back then that was all the money I had and I remember thinking when I was looking at it OMG what have I done:unsure:Ā I still have it and I not long ago changed the only bad thing about it which was the front bumper its probably worth a bit more than I paid for it back then?

The second most recent was a losi rockrey I paid about Ā£450 for it and again I thought why did I spend so much money on that when I have really no time to go on a journey to use it because around my area there's no place to get the full potential out of it so it sat in my wardrobe in its box completely unused for about a year then I had a crazy notion to decide to spend a small fortune hopping it up so I would fall in love with it.......but no still never usedĀ it:unsure:Ā  but on the flipside all was not lost i had it in my hand when i went to my almost LHS to get a extra small allen key for the split rims and the shop owner thought it looked amazing so I did a deal with him in exchange for a kyosho turbo optimašŸ‘

Ā 

20190209_130907.jpg

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one for me was not reading the listing properly. I looking at a listing for aĀ Sand Scorcher shell, and all the pics had the chassis in thereĀ as well, so thought it was the whole car. In the description was wording to say shell only, but in my excitement of thinking I was getting a bargain, I missed that bit!Ā So paid a little more than I should have, but lesson learnt to check all detailsĀ :mellow:

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Think it's happened to all of us at some time or other.Ā  Ebay is possibly the worst, cars are described as "used" or "restoration project" but that can mean anything - "used" could mean "has been in use and will run straight away" or could mean "had been used to death".Ā  I don't usually argue with sellers if something isn't what expect because so much is open to interpretation.Ā  Also English is not everyone's native language and language is not everyone's strong point.Ā  I will usually go to the effort of writing a detailed description of stuff I'm selling but some people are happy to sell on a one-liner that says almost nothing.

I once bought a used Bear Hawk for restoration, it was so good it only needed a new body to make a good runner.Ā  An NIB body came up cheap but I foolishly sold it on to a colleague for little money.Ā  I even sold him theĀ NIB body, unpainted.Ā  He gave it to his 5 year old son.Ā  I was quite sickened when he brought it in a week later, badly sprayed with no primer, decals roughly cut with what looked like a wood saw, split and jagged and badly placed and covered in thumb prints.

I really missed that car, too.Ā  It took me a while to find another at a good price, and it was a basket case.Ā  I had to replace most of the plastic parts to make an acceptable runner, and the body, while complete, needed a lot of gluing to make it sound for running.

You win some, you lose some :)

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Thankfully Iā€™veĀ landed a lot more deals than duds over the years, but IĀ still get caught from time to time though.

I learnt the hard way very early on with a expensive 3 speed purchase that wasĀ utter garbage- total junk.

Sadly I bought it privately on the web so there was no route for recourse.Ā 
Ā 

I paid strong money for my Super Champ last year, not bonkers but thankfully Ā Iā€™ve seen others sell for more since.Ā 
Ā 

Iā€™m just a bit to keen sometimes, you want what ya want, when ya want it šŸ˜‚

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I've been stung a few times, albeit knowingly. Purely because of foreign exchange rates.

What would normally be reasonable in the country of sale can become quite expensive when converting a poor AUD into GBP, EUR, or USD.

These cars were a 'must have' for me, and I wasn't conned or mislead. I wanted these cars and paid for them.

I was a little bit dirty though with a relatively recent purchase that was labelled 'vintage'.

Turned out to be mostly re-re parts, but for the price I paid I would've been happy dropping the same coin on a used re-re.

Like many others here, I have paid top dollar for rare parts.

I've been fortunate though to have not experienced some of the horror stories that others have had.

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Like most I have had a few problems with my usedĀ  purchases. What generally makes me pull the trigger is if there is a rare or period correct upgrade on a car that I think I really want. In the attic presently is a box or hornets, grasshoppers, super hornets and a super g that were all bought for one reason or another. One of the cars was so trashed I bought another to donate it's parts to the rest. In this example I got a few good parts and accessories like a black endurance motor or a white futaba attack radio set but mostly it is a when I get to it box. No real interest in doing them up and sorting the broken bits from the good bits, counting the NIB candy green, black special and Watanabe,Ā  I might have ten.Ā 

No one needs ten hoppers but the few color editions will make a nice pairing with the box art cars at one point.

Used cars are generally dirty, broken, neglected or otherwise incomplete. I have learned to study the text and pictures much more closely when looking for that gem

Ā On the other hand, sometimes it works out. I got an 88 Avante that is nearly perfect. Since I didn't build it myself though, I feel a bit apprehensive to dig into it and see how it works and if it's broken in any way. Haven't even run it yet. Maybe that's the case with buying rtr or premade trucks, you just don't appreciate it the same as if you'd built it from a kit.

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Clod ā€œChevā€ grill and tailgate. Thought I was getting new parts to add to my NIB kit, but alas some painted used bits turned up šŸ˜­, same old story, check the description!!

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Sometimes you buy blind and it comes out very nice and sometimes not so good at all. I can deal with this. But what is really annoying, if people show pics where you can see something is wrong and the comment "all nice, all working, great condition". Lately seen on a Stadium Thunder shell which had nearly holes through the roof.

Another guy I can eat with his shoes on, he is selling a Dyna Storm. The pics from the front Bulkhead are a bit blurry and dark. So I asked hin if there are any cracks, especially those two spikes. As an anser:"... its far away from breaking off" and some more. Does it mean its not fallen off yet but already cracked? After some mails he told me he will raise the price up in the next hour if I dont buy it. Since over a month its online now and no one wants it. Karma, Karma : )

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So......working on said car in my OP.

Combination of damning myself for all kinds of a fool and grinding my teeth and thinking, 'some people don't deserve RC cars...'

It's been run hard, had a hard life, and quite a few bodgy repairs done. I mean, that IS the point in having an offroad/bashing RC, I get it, but.....grrrr...

Been stripping bits off it, checking things out. Here's a list so far.

Replacing pinion and spur cover as the old one had a hole worn through it...somehow. (Screws had also come loose behind the spur, loosening the plate behind it and the screw heads digging a groove in the back of the spur gear)
Shocks leaking like..a lot, got re-kits on the way.
Needed a heap of plastic retainers that have a shoulder on one end, a shaft an then a hole for a body pin to go through.
Replaced flogged out front axle bearings.
Bought a complete screw kit for it, figured it couldn't hurt.
Going to need to find boots for the drive shafts and shocks.

There will probably be more....

It's a HPI Baja 5b btw......converted to electric power.

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Reading this thread, another one has come to me.

I bought a used Hummer from a Facebook group a few years back.Ā  I'd wanted one when they were still available NIB for reasonable prices, but I'd passed up on the opportunity and regretted it.Ā  I'd regretted not buying some good standard builds when they came along, too.Ā  Then they seemed to dry up - there was nothing at all, or they were mint and very expensive.Ā  Too expensive for something I'd use as a runner.

Then a Facebook seller was getting rid of 3 of them.Ā  One was box-art and completely stock.Ā  One was desert camo and hopped up but less tidy.Ā  And one was boxart but on a custom-made stick chassis for crawling.Ā  All priced at the same relatively high pricepoint, but I couldn't pass up an opportunity, so I jumped.Ā  Two were sold, the only one left was the stick chassis.

It arrived a few days later and didn't look too bad on first inspection.Ā  It was wearing some ugly white beadlocks and some very old mud bogger tyres, but the body was largely undamaged and just needed electrics to run.Ā  It was only on closer inspection that I realised much of the smaller scale parts were missing, and things like the mirrors had been re-made from bent allthread and tin sheet.Ā  Like most purchases it went into a box and didn't get touched for ages.Ā  Then I was invited to go to a local RC crawler meet, and a mate wanted to come along, but I only had one crawler - my SCX10.Ā  So I dug out the Hummer and slapped in some electrics.Ā  Sure enough, it ran.

Actually it went surprisingly well for a low-slung independently-sprung chassis with a silvercan motor and cheap tyres.Ā  We had to winch it over a lot of stuff but it made it around the course and amazingly didn't break.

After doing so well, I figured it was time for a rebuild.Ā  For the first time ever I actually stripped it down to investigate the custom chassis.Ā  My plan was to rebuild it as-was but add an ABS floor pan so I could build in an interior.

Well, upon stripping it down, I figured there was no way I would allow myself to build it back up again like that.Ā  The stick chassis was made from two lengths of alu channel from a hardware store, roughly-hacked to approximate lengths and bolted together with a mish-mash of rusty screws.Ā  The holes that secured the front gearbox hadn't been drilled level, so the front axle was always on the slant.Ā  The lower plate, which I had thought was structural, was paper-thin and bendy.

To be fair, it fulfilled its brief and did it pretty well for what it was, but it was too much of a rush job to be worth putting back together.Ā  It's still languishing in pieces several years later waiting for me to get on and build a proper plate chassis for it...

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4 hours ago, Mad Ax said:

Well, upon stripping it down, I figured there was no way I would allow myself to build it back up again like that.Ā  The stick chassis was made from two lengths of alu channel from a hardware store, roughly-hacked to approximate lengths and bolted together with a mish-mash of rusty screws.Ā  The holes that secured the front gearbox hadn't been drilled level, so the front axle was always on the slant.Ā  The lower plate, which I had thought was structural, was paper-thin and bendy.

Sounds like the custom Unimog crawler I bought (long before Unimogs were common lexan things) with hand built ladder chassis (long before China generic chassis were common) with TLT axles (long before HighLift appeared).

Chassis is interestingly "greebled" and looks the part from 10' away. But if you brought out calipers its doubtful its anywhere square. It's all painted over with black but where the paint has chipped off I think it's "mixed media" from steel bars, scrap aluminium and balsa wood...Ā :blink::wacko:

Axle cases have taken a beating but they run smooth. It's a slow crawler so handling is not required but it'll climb a fair terrain. So space on chassis to fit battery so it lives on the tipper bed - which can't tip anymore with batter there.Ā 

Haven't had heart yet to pull it apart, I know it'll never get reassembled the same. Takes up less space as 1 truck than a mess of pieces.Ā 

Ā 

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Only cars I've been really had my fingers burned on where cars from the US. Paid a, not bad price , then get absolutely slaughtered by the shipping, import tax, the VAT and a lovely fee from the post office! All of which double the price of the car!!Ā 

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So now I've got a full bearing kit for said car.

It's turned in to a bit of a full service/rebuild. Just want it to be right/basically sound before I run it.

Not really the fault of the person I bought this from if I'm honest. If I get something in this kind of condition, it's just where things tend to go.

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It's me again, still grinding my teeth.
Stripping the whole car down now, dear lord........

The previous owner of this car is a badword. the Baddest of badwords. The baddest badword who ever badworded.

This thing was ran hard, then obviously stripped at some point, put back together really badly, like lots of missing screws and cable ties.

Possibly also going to need new gears.

I really got ripped off this time.

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