Out of all of these in the 1/10th scale and smaller, which had the most bang for the buck? (which are diamonds in the rough?)
As you can see, excepted the Tamiya, they are all chinese brands. I received almost all of them from whebshop to do a review. You can see videos on almost all theses cars on my youtube channel :
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBpWs8cay7kTcjilt7dzsHA. Forget the name of the webshop on the videos as you can buy them where you want. Some will say that reviews for products received for free are biased, it isn't false to say that, there are too many biased reviews on youtube, i did be fooled by few of them. Under each videos there is a link to my review on rcgrousp and i show all the bads things that happen to me with these cars, maybe more than many others reviewers. I'm not the kind of guy who say easily and quickly, awesome, very nice, or this kind of things in my reviews.
Anyway, so far i would say that my diamond car is the Tekno EB48.3 (i still haven't tested my Arrma Kraton). Compared to the Tekno no one of them reach its level of handling and durability. I bought my Tekno as second-hand, so not so very expensive. There is also a thread on my EB48.3. So, when we talk about diamond, imo we talk about something with a high level. My nightmare car was the H.King Rattler, sold as 3s capable buta 3s lipo destroy the drive train, it need many modifications to hold a 3s lipo. And also the Menmax Mammoth, HPI apache copy, with weak transmission and bad gearboxes mold.
So, in the 1/10 and smaller cars, there is no real diamonds, there are some of them who are nice for the price and will need more or less upgrades. The remo hobby 1/16 is nice, not very fast but solid, it doesn't need upgrade, not the peferct car but fun. The WLtoys 12428 is nice excepted the gears which are weak but there is a metal gears upgrade which is recently sold. The WLtoys 10428 which is a twin hammer copy, isn't bad excepted that the electronic can fail. The SST 1937 at the price it is sold offer good things, my main complain is the shock absorbers which can open easily and the front a-arms pins which can bend easily. The FS Racing Victory X, when the diff. housing is upgraded isn't bad. I like the JLB 21101, but i have the first release with bigger wheel axle than the further release which tend to break, but JLB has upgraded the wheel axle for really bigger one, we still wait to see them available. The P949 tractor is a good copy but discontinued, it is really a fun car to drive, the original tamiya will be same. None of these in 1/18 to 1/10 cars need to spend a fortune in upgrades if you keep them stock and don't ask too much to them. The HBX Iron hammer is the one which has the most poor handling. I can't list all the cars here, i advise to read my reviews on these cars.
I would say that none of them are really crap. They are almost all cheap and for the price they offer good things. I see them cars/trucks for low budget and for somebody who want to enter in the hobby to give it a try without burn is wallet. But we really can't compare them (from 1/16 to 1/10) to a tekno (the diamond) or even Arrma 1/8 (even Arrma need few uprgades to make it more durable) which are really good basher. Even the BSR Berserker isn't bad (a HSP uprgaded sea rover) but not at the level of Arrma, a little bit behind.
It aslo depend what you want to do when you buy a rc car. I see many users use the car mainly on flat surface and don't bash it in skate park or BMX track and are happy with that, so they say that the car is durable for them. Me , i would say that i have a rough use with my cars, so i manage to break almost all of them. A recent example with the ZD racing Thunder ZTX 1/10 stadium, quadcopter 101 did a video review on flat and loose surface without doing really big jumps, for him the car is nice and fun when with me, by doing more big jumps, i show that we can bend a dog bone, break the body shell, the slipper can become loose, drive cup grubs screw can become loose, the motor can lose is position and we can strip the spur gear, this car need to be verified before use it, so i don't say the same things than quadcopter 101.
. Too bad that URC is down since a long time.
