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J@mes

How far would you go?

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I recently drove 1.5 hours each way to pick up an rc car kit. No bother, nice drive. Thing is I completely forgot to pay the toll both ways on the Dartford crossing. So a week later 2 (yes2!) letters for penalty charge notices for the toll at 2 x £2.50 PLUS 2 x £35 penalty charge, rising to 2 x £70 if not paid within 14 days! Ouch. 
 

I got off lightly though as it was my 1st offence & they waived the penalty so I just had to pay the toll. Phew! 
 

wondering if anyone else has driven even further specifically for an rc purchase or been hit with additional cost or drama, aside from import duty etc.?

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I drove 3 hours for a nearly new Bullhead with radio gear for $150. Pretty good deal. Two years later, with very little additional run time on it, I sold it for $180 (which was still a pretty good deal for the buyer) and kept the radio gear. Its one of the very few times things worked out in my favor and I didn't loose my shirt on a deal. 

I'm getting paranoid in my older age though. I was trying to get up the ambition to get a Kyosho Big Brute about 2 hours away. The guy adamantly wouldn't meet in a public place and after googling his house, I found it was in a very secluded place, alone in the woods. I just felt sketched out by the whole deal so I let it pass by.

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I have to frequently drive 2-2.5 hours away... I Live in a City of over 1.2 MILLION People - and they feel that ONE ill-equipped Hobby Shop is enough. 😖😡😞 

So I have to hobble my broken butt to Feenix if I want to do any REAL shopping (when I can't just buy it online).

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So there’s no bucket to throw your pound coin in through there now then @J@mes?

On a good day it’s about 1.5 hours to my nearest HS. That is for the 3 weeks of the year there are now roadworks on the Bruce Highway, now it can take much longer. I’m often that way for work fortunately and if there’s room to park the Truck out the front then I’ll duck in and pick up paint or sundries as they rarely have Tamiya RC kits. 
It’s a good excuse to take the M/bike for a spin though if it needs some cobwebs blown out while crossing the Tropic of Capricorn 😃

95F83886-E0A7-4546-BF81-C77719FCB12D.md.

 

 

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Probably about 20 minutes max each way unless I can fabricate another reason for visiting the destination.. It comes from being time short.. also If I factor in how much it would cost me to buy more holiday from work and then add on the fuel costs. It almost always works out better to pay for delivery and I can use the travel time saved doing more work on the cars or playing with the early retirement cancellation unit (4year old) It would have to be something pretty special.

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For anything that can be bought new, it's almost always cheaper and easier for me to order it rather than drive 45 minutes to the "good" hobby shop. Sad reality, but there it is. (And I've certainly made my last trip there until we get this virus under control...)

But used/vintage, that's another story. I remember driving up to Battle Ground, WA for a Blackfoot (about an hour each way), and down to Salem (an hour the other way) for a big box of RC10s and parts. My wife and I also like going to antique malls and thrift stores, and we've been known to travel a couple hours to explore a good one. I've never found any RC stuff in them (yet), but half my static model collection came from such places.

I've been tempted by a few things in Seattle, and I think I'd drive that far, for the right deal...

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@markbt73 We often forget about Antique Shops and Thrift Stores... The ones I've been to, haven't had any RC related stuff there either. 😞  But I guess you never know!

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3hrs each way is my max behind the wheel last year - and sporadic lockdowns make anything longer unlikely until next year 

It’s all understandable but a pita for rare, vintage stuff as even expensive couriers are overwhelmed at the moment and - even if sellers are prepared to ship - delicate items often end up damaged in transit ... making the whole thing pointless 

The only other longer haul, horror story to note is Japanese postal rules becoming a lottery - with shipping to some countries periodically blocked / delayed because they’re deemed high risk of Covid returns ... so your stuff can sit in a warehouse for months with no clue as to when it will finally arrive 

They’ve also gone bonkers in categorising OEM greases / glues in vintage kits as a fire hazard - so the usual Japanese brokers will now open NIB and remove them ... - and won’t go anywhere near OEM NIP lipo or life batteries for similar reasons 

You can’t even import them if you buy ISO rated, flame retardant, lipo safe bags for shipping ... 🙄

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well it depends on the item and the condition plus price as i factor the fuel cost in the purchase but i did travel to windsor witch is rufley 120 mile (240 round trip)to get their for a pair of hi-fi speakers i brought from a charity shop . i do travel to tony's tamiya when i buy from him witch takes around a hour as i don't use motor ways 

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@Re-Bugged the Ole bucket o’ coins made way when the bridge was finished, if I recall correct. Used to go through the tunnel to visit my grandparents in Upminster in the 80s & remember the tunnel (& coin toll!) from childhood.

 

It seems many of us in the hobby are prepared to travel a long way for something considered worth the effort. I enjoy an occasional trip to collect stuff, it is more rewarding/ enjoyable than the box just delivered in my experience, like somehow the effort enhances the acquisition.

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14 minutes ago, J@mes said:

  I enjoy an occasional trip to collect stuff, it is more rewarding/ enjoyable than the box just delivered in my experience, like somehow the effort enhances the acquisition.

I read that as you don't like to live on the edge where your partner may intercept the package, unlike many on here who clearly enjoy the game of getting ever increasing packages inside undetected...

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2 hours ago, J@mes said:

I enjoy an occasional trip to collect stuff, it is more rewarding/ enjoyable than the box just delivered in my experience, like somehow the effort enhances the acquisition.

When I was young, I was treated to the occasional trip to a Toys R Us (RIP) toy store if I had saved up enough pocket money. Being a young kid, there was ample anticipation on the trip down to the store, the thrill of being in that huge toy store, and the happy satisfaction when leaving the store, toy in hand. A successful trip to get an old RC vehicle comes closest to replicating the first and last emotions in that previous scenario. For an adult, that's pretty cool to me. 

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I have been known to travel a fair way to pick stuff up.  I think the furthest I went specifically to pick up an RC was a few years back when I had a week off work, I had just rebuilt my motorbike after foolishly falling off at a cold roundabout, and I wanted to put some miles on it.  A popular member here had a King Blackfoot chassis for sale, so I took a 90 minute round-trip ride up to his place, had a coffee and a natter and looked at his fabulous collection of willies before setting off home again.  That was a lovely day out.  IIRC it was mid-Jan and bitterly cold, but i stayed dry and the ride was nice.

In Feb and March this year I took the long journey to Robin Hood Raceway for their Tamiya Junkies bashes, that's 5+ hours there in Friday traffic and around 3.5 hours back, and on both occasions a friend of mine asked me to pick up used cars from other Junkies attendees.  He said he was going to make the journey just to pick them up (why you'd drive all that way and not stop to have a blast on the track, I don't know :o ) but as I was going that way, I was able to grab them for him.  Actually, last time, in March, I stopped off at Wheelspin Models on the way through Birmingham (added about 45 mins to my journey) to buy an NIB SMT-10.  I'd never been to their shop before and thought it would be nice to meet the people behind the website.  A week later their showroom closed due to Covid and like most model shops, hasn't re-opened for store sales (still open for e-commerce, of course!)

But then, there are times when I'll make the long journey to a truck meet because I can be fairly sure somebody will be selling a truck / trailer / body / chassis / whatever and I'm in the market for a what-have-you project, sometimes I'm disappointed when I get there and there isn't anything for sale - as if the only reason I was going was so I could buy something random.

I've done crazy long journeys for things in the past.  A 5 hour round trip to pick up some alloy wheels for my FTO, a 6 hour round trip to pick up an engine for a classic Mini project, another 6 hour round trip to sell it to swap it with someone for a motorbike engine, (and get a tattoo while I was in the area), then another 6 hour round trip to the same place to pick up a project motorbike from the tattooist.

Just last week I had some holiday from work, my family were occupied so I got on my motorbike and rode down to the south coast just for the badword of it.  I was going to have a nice walk along the seafront and harbour, but it's school holiday time here and it was crazy busy.  Given we're supposed to be in the middle of a pandemic I figured I was safer elsewhere, so I basically did a 5 hour round trip to have a stroll along some cliffs and eat fish and chips.

It was really good fish and chips, though.

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It’s 4 hours to my nearest hobby store, needless to say that trips there are accompanied by other business. 
 

luckily our hobby stores in Western Australia where considered “essential” businesses and allowed to stay open if they wanted to (they could go online only if they wanted). Annoyingly probably like most places in the world our hobby stores here the turnovers tripled and the stock got gobbled up and we have a heap of empty hobby stores here waiting for stock that might not arrive before Xmas. Seems to be the same story with all toy shops, bike shops, sporting shops, anything that’s not work related, cleaned out. 
 

Given I’m so far away from a major city, expensive courier freight has become my best friend.
 

 

 

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