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Piece of crap Rustler

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L

LosiLST

Gone - bye bye.
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Location
Washington.
RC Driving Style
  1. Bashing
last Friday I bought a XL-5 Rustler from Towerhobbies. I also bought Two 8 cell NiMh Battery packs for it so that I could run it. Well I received the batteries a couple days before the Rustler and my friend ran them in his VXL Slash with no problems what so ever for about 6 or 7 cycles each. Again, no Problems. I received the Rustler Last night, put battery number one in and ran it, I come back after about 5 minutes of running and one of the 8 cells on my battery had completly overheated and was smoking. So then I thought I just had a bad pack, didn't think too much about it and threw battery pack number two in it, again, short run time, and blistering hot smoking battery. I now have two useless batteries because of the Rustler I bought from you guys and so far am not impressed at all with the Rustler. It has not had any speed at all, no power and poor run times even when I put in my friends 4500 Mah 6 cell battery. So now i'm down about 100 dollars in batteries and have a useless rig untill I can afford new battery backs, and have no clue if it'll do it again. I don't know what you guys can do about it but as far as I see it right now, I will never buy another Traxxas product.

Really upset right now, Guess there is a reason why Losi is the top.
 
Yeah, I don't know. So far, nitro is itchin up my sleeve. Some say (different forum) it's a short in the ESC. Traxxas I guess is pretty reliable with their stuff so I guess i'll see what they say and do about it.

For more info too, I ran a 6 cell Traxxas 3300 pack, the battery got SO hot that I had to wait about ten minutes to handle it enough to even take it out of the truck. I also ran a 2 cell 4000 Lipo and the Lipo even got hot. Like really hot. So I'm thinking problems with the Electronics.
 
I've run about 8 personal xl-5's before with everything from 6-8 cell nimhs and 2s batteries. Never had a problem. It must be a bad esc.
 
it is all stock? the boys pede did that and the motor was to hot for the setup.
 
Traxxas has lifetime warenty on all of their electronics. So send back the esc with a note saying what is happening. I have a Nitro Rustler and the tank never sealed properly, so it filled the ballon that my recever was in with nitro and fryed it. I sent the parts back with a note, and in about 2 weeks (I live in Canada so it took longer) I had a brand new gas tank, recever and pipe(don't know why i got the pipe)!
Hope everything works for ya:D
 
Well just got off the phone with Traxxas and they said I have to send my whole Rustler back in to be looked at. They want to simulate the problem. So now i have to spend 20 bucks to ship this out to them and hope they will fix it. Whatever Traxxas.
 
Didnt wana say anything, but i have had no good experience with their customer support. Their screw ups have always cost me more money.
 
LosiLST said:
Well just got off the phone with Traxxas and they said I have to send my whole Rustler back in to be looked at. They want to simulate the problem. So now i have to spend 20 bucks to ship this out to them and hope they will fix it. Whatever Traxxas.
Click to expand...

they will!
they are taking great care of their customers!
 
LosiLST said:
Yeah, Brand new From Tower. Stock gearing and all.
Click to expand...

You said stock gearing but it comes with two pinions, a 19 and a 28. Honestly both pinions are too tall for that 550 12t motor but the crazy "need for speed" thing has caused them to put a taller gear out of the box and on a 6 cell the 19t pinion might be ok but when the cell count goes up so does the heat issues.....The 28t pinion is a joke IMO. None of this is your fault but don't be surprised if they don't find a problem although they have been know to swap a part just to satisfy a customer regardless if it fixes the problem or not.

Also, what batteries did you buy?
 
Okay, so after my talk with Traxxas this morning I really don't see why everyone says they are so great. When I called them this morning a guy answered the phone and with a pretty monotone voice was like state your problem. I told him what was going on and he told me it was my fault. Said that I probably over stressed the car and made it try to do too much. Said the 9.6 volts is a lot of power going to the truck and that i shouldn't of ran it like it did. WTF!! It was stock out of the box with Anacondas! He said that it was my fault and there was nothing he could really do. So them I ripped into him, I told him that it's complete BS for a XL-5, Which states it CAN run a 8 cell pack! How is it too much power if in the Manual it says I can run that! And no where did it say before running a 8 cell change gearing! No! And then I told him that even his own brand Traxxas NiMH packs got blistering hot! And even Lipos got hot when they were ran in it! He says, oh, well you might have a problem with you electronics! No FU**ING Duh! Said in order for them to fix it, I would have to send my whole entire truck back to Traxxas in order for them to stimulate the problem and if they could then they would change the ESC! Honestly, I think it's a bunch of bullsh*t. He treated me pretty lame and I am not impressed at all.
 
Did you bother to check the gear mesh? Look for anything binding? The factory people could easily make a mistake or 2. It's your fault for wasting those batteries. Shouldn't take anything for granted. Especially somebody else assembling your rig. The customer support attitude sounds lame, but they said they would help. It's probably the esc. I just put one in my old, sloppy rustler yesterday. Talon 2.8's, 25-87 gears and a 4200 8 cell. Works great. Check for drivetrain bind, try a different esc if you have access, and see what happens. Run it for short intervals and check temps. Or just send it back and have it fixed. Traxxas support is top notch.
 
Metalhead Matt said:
Did you bother to check the gear mesh? Look for anything binding? The factory people could easily make a mistake or 2. It's your fault for wasting those batteries. Shouldn't take anything for granted. Especially somebody else assembling your rig. The customer support attitude sounds lame, but they said they would help. It's probably the esc. I just put one in my old, sloppy rustler yesterday. Talon 2.8's, 25-87 gears and a 4200 8 cell. Works great. Check for drivetrain bind, try a different esc if you have access, and see what happens. Run it for short intervals and check temps. Or just send it back and have it fixed. Traxxas support is top notch.
Click to expand...

that's right,I always recommend to put a higher pinion on the motor when changing to more powerful batteries or if there is bigger load...
this will always keep your temps down.
 
But thats what i'm saying, My motor and ESC don't get hot. The batteries only do. If there was any binding or anything the motor would be overly stressed causing the ESC and Motor to heat up, and both did not. I made sure to check the gear mesh as soon as I got it, i know it's just like the Nitros, check screws, binding, mesh, ETC.
 
That's pretty wild. Must be something causing the battery to short inside the esc. Let traxxas worry about it. From the little bit I used mine, about 2 packs, the motor gets a little warm. Won't burn ya. The esc is barely warm and the battery was hardly warm to the touch. About 20 minutes of pretty hard running. Half grass, half pavement. It was about 50 degrees outside.
 

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