Shorter lifespan re-releases

[nowinaminute 2196]

All I know is I was really miffed when I found out the Manta had been discontinued. It was quite a bargain, especially considering what has come since.

[Saito2 3018]

6 hours ago, mud4fun said:

 yes agreed but pushing a car past its original design intentions is a grey area and Open to interpretation......

True. I guess my interpretation involved not jumping a Thundershot off a house roof just to see what happens (a'la Traxxas). Pushing a car in competition and finding its limits through eventual parts failure is actually an interesting aspect of the hobby. 

 

6 hours ago, mud4fun said:

I would argue Tamiyas failure in buggy racing was due to lack of support and development of their existing chassis (and their drivers) rather than their buggies being totally outclassed.

I can agree with that. Since Tamiya made RC for everyone, competition was just one piece of their large pie unlike other companies who devoted much of their efforts to solely winning races. You can bash about with an RC10, but in the end, it was built to win races. Kyosho seems the most obvious parallel to Tamiya with its large and varied range of vehicles. I'd argue their scales tipped the other direction with better competition cars than bashers while Tamiya did more business with basher than comp cars. If general RC is the core business, racing may not bring the returns needed to justify the expense. Optimas and Ultimas may have had a halo effect for Kyosho (I honestly don't know) but I doubt the Egress made some kid want a Madcap or Fire Dragon. They probably just thought it  looked cool and Tamiya was excellent at tempting us with their inspired designs, names and artwork.

I wish Tamiya spent more time developing their vehicles. The Avante is probably one of their greatest attempts at it. Whether it was a passion product or simply had too much development cost to simply cast aside, the Egress was a firm step forward in developing the car. If only we saw the Jamie Booth car modifications make it into future production models instead of being a development mule for the jack-of-all-trades DF01 platform. In reality, "development" for Tamiya is more like adding twin shocks to an original monoshock buggy, adding sway bars or offering pretty alloy shocks as a hop-up (which are more like here-and-gone collectors items than an actual easily available hop-up). They seem to rarely admit mistakes or rectify issues unless they are crippling like the Juggernaut 1. If the Blackfoot Monster Beetle re-re diffs are as bad as people on the forum report, that seems rather negligent. If Clod chassis' broke and the Bullhead fixed the issue with brace plates, why didn't the original Clod (still for sale at the time) get them too?  

[mud4fun 1691]

13 minutes ago, Saito2 said:

True. I guess my interpretation involved not jumping a Thundershot of a house roof just to see what happens (a'la Traxxas)

LOL I see your point 

 

15 minutes ago, Saito2 said:

In reality, "development" for Tamiya is more like adding twin shocks to an original monoshock buggy, adding sway bars or offering pretty alloy shocks as a hop-up

So true 

[Mrowka 239]

36 minutes ago, Saito2 said:

I wish Tamiya spent more time developing their vehicles....

In reality, "development" for Tamiya is more like adding twin shocks to an original monoshock buggy, adding sway bars or offering pretty alloy shocks as a hop-up (which are more like here-and-gone collectors items than an actual easily available hop-up). 

That is what I like about the Kyosho re res. They look broadly similar to the originals but the internals reflect some more of the things that have changed since 1985 or so.

[slimleeroy 230]

On 11/14/2020 at 1:16 PM, Saito2 said:

I've been reading post on the subject and tend to agree with you @slimleeroy. In theory, as a US resident I shouldn't have to track down spares through odd far east channels or kit breakers at all. Ideally, since we have Tamiya USA, they should be supplied with all the spares we need in the States for a reasonable amount of time. I have the feeling sometimes that Tamiya USA is kept in the dark as much as we hobbyist are when comes to the mysteries of Tamiya Japan. They seem to basically get whatever Tamiya Japan sends and that's it and have very little input on how/what Tamiya Japan does. Again, this is all conjecture on my part.

Very true. I never condone abusing cars or running them clearly outside their limits for destructive purposes but they should still be driven as they were meant to be. Accidents happen. Things naturally break. I have shelf queens and I have runners. That said, I like to drive my runners fear and guilt-free because that takes away from the experience. An Egress was/is a race buggy and should be seen as possibly seeing that kind of action in use. That means potential breakage in race situations and a need for parts. Considering its intended purpose and price tag, that's not too much to ask. In the case of the Egress, I can't just give Tamiya a pass because "well, its a Tamiya, you know how their spares situation is" or "Tamiyas aren't normally race buggies, so go easy on them". 

I understand the sheer volume of different models puts Tamiya in a tough spot with spares. With a limited line of race oriented vehicles, like Losi or Associated, a company can offer good parts support for some time. It could be a simple situation of Tamiya producing spares in the same ratio to the number of re-re kits that were sold. Collectors and owners of old cars gobble them up quickly and once they're gone, they're gone. That's tough for the guy who bought an Egress and finds no spares a year later when they have a random breakage and now have a $450.00 paperweight sitting on the workbench.

Agree 100%. If cars are sold in various countries then the spares should be too.  Tamiya are a brilliant company but we should not keep excusing them.  Kyosho are leagues ahead and nearly every spare, even for their re released buggies are readily available.  We shouldn't have to break kits in order to get spares.  This removes one more kit which somebody could.have bought.  Look at the vqs hicap situation.  It's diabolical that tamiya announce these then only.make a fraction of the amount required.  

[Mrowka 239]

Parts breakers break up kits because they can sell the parts piecemeal for more than the kit costs. In short, the margin is higher for spares than it is for whole kits. That's why the breakers break kits.

If Tamiya fixed their spare parts supply situation, they could take those higher margins for themselves. But they don't.

Tamiya seems to be one of those companies whose internal logic baffles me.

[mud4fun 1691]

16 minutes ago, Mrowka said:

Tamiya seems to be one of those companies whose internal logic baffles me.

me too 

[Jonathon Gillham 3340]

Umm, is it just me or do Tamiya just sell a rere kit expecting it to be built and run twice then put back in its box? Most people I know who get into this stuff do it for a very short time. We see it on the forums too, people who come and go in a short period of time.

So why sell sell spares for a a model that will sit in the attic, or maybe on the shelf?

[Saito2 3018]

41 minutes ago, Jonathon Gillham said:

Umm, is it just me or do Tamiya just sell a rere kit expecting it to be built and run twice then put back in its box? Most people I know who get into this stuff do it for a very short time.

And perhaps, right or wrong, that's how Tamiya has more or less felt about the rerelease program all along. Who knows? The Top Force, Manta Ray and Thundershot were all released quite briefly back in the mid 2000s. It was the Lunch Box, Hornet, Grasshopper, Frog and then Hot Shot from around that time that stuck around and perhaps they simply sold too well to simply cast aside. Sometimes being part of this online community warps perception. Yes, those of us who have been here 5+ years might still be running re-res regularly, but even within here as @Jonathon Gillham noted, people can come and go quickly. Imagine how many people outside the forum buy a re-re for the novelty of it and then shelve it. Perhaps this is what Tamiya banks on. They could stand to make money by producing spares (and pleasing their hardcore enthusiast) but it could be a gamble. With little to no spares, nothing is gained but nothing lost either. Safer (although very frustrating for us) bet perhaps?  Just conjecture on my part.  

[taffer 755]

But if that's the case, it's a shame there isn't a Tamiya website focused on spares orders, even if the waiting time is long, maybe in the future, spares will be 3d printed by Tamiya per order!?

[tamiya3speed 278]

3 hours ago, taffer said:

But if that's the case, it's a shame there isn't a Tamiya website focused on spares orders, even if the waiting time is long, maybe in the future, spares will be 3d printed by Tamiya per order!?

Now that would be cool!  I envision a time where you could order spares like shapeways, or maybe even have a way to send the file to your own network connected 3d printer Not sure anyone or any printer can do this now but a guy can dream right!

[DeadMeat666 1276]

On 11/22/2020 at 12:27 PM, Jonathon Gillham said:

We see it on the forums too, people who come and go in a short period of time.

Ha ha 

That is so me right now!

For what it's worth, I'm still here, albeit much less active than before. But that's mostly because I'm undergoing a major change in life that's keeping me away from RC entirely.

I know this post came out of nowhere, but I figured I'd take this chance to explain what 'happened' to me.

I still visit TC daily, but it's mostly as a lurker until I regain stability and get back into the groove.

Cheers guys,

[Morinstal 62]

On 11/22/2020 at 4:27 PM, Jonathon Gillham said:

Umm, is it just me or do Tamiya just sell a rere kit expecting it to be built and run twice then put back in its box? Most people I know who get into this stuff do it for a very short time. We see it on the forums too, people who come and go in a short period of time.

So why sell sell spares for a a model that will sit in the attic, or maybe on the shelf?

For me its the opposite, i dont use my boomerang rere anymore because there is no spareparts available here. But I agree that most of the classic tamiya kits looks pretty on the shelf XD

[A-Baum 195]

One thing that bothers me about Tamiya is their absolute secrecy.  Why not be transparent to your customer base?  Tell us how long a production run for a re-re might be.  Tell us where you are planning to ship them.  Or at least tell the country specific distributor what the badword is going on so they can answer people's questions.  Tamiya isn't making nuclear weapons here.  You can a little more upfront with your supply chain. 

[thegorf 39]

So much criticism of a company (rightly so imo), yet when a new car hits the shelves, we all (well, most of us) go straight out and beg for our wallets to be emptied.  For as long as that situation exists, I fear that Tamiya won't give a stuff what we all think about their cars, parts supply or their internal politics.  Perhaps when fewer people are living the nostalgia dream, and they have to appeal to a wider range of punters, their models appealing on their own merits, they'll start to care more about providing a competitive model with decent aftersales support.  Until then, just expect more of the same.

It's the main reason I've stuck to Tamiya staples / core models thus far - Lunchie, Hornet, Blitzer - good simple, wholesome, fun rigs that don't cost the earth and for which you can easily get parts.