Why does everyone not like traxxas

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A follow-up to that, is that I haven't really seen a bad brand lately - only some with limited replacement or aftermarket parts support.

With the age of 3d printing, I'm seeing people get quite innovative and just making/printing their own replacements - gears included.
 
Hi there i have many traxxas cars and just wandering why do so many people hate traxxas
If you do a Yahoo!/Google search of Traxxas vs. Hobbico, or Traxxas Boycotting you'll find a great deal of info on why some RC enthusiasts feel the way they do. Lots of threads on the subject.
 
I seem to love Traxxas too, possibly from a lack of experience with anything else. One thing that grabs me about their Catamaran boat. (No not the fact that it comes wth no batteries of charger.) In their own instruction manual, they say you can't do figure 8s or circles too long or you will overheat the ESC. (Engine and steering servos working too long) I spent about $100 for cooling system upgrades, but would still heed these warnings.
Still not sure what the OP is looking for, but I just hate thinking of all those kids getting one of these boats as a gift, only to find out they are about $300 off from having something they expect.
 
Marauder : My wife and I both laugh at the videos where someone takes a new kit to the skate park on the highest cell lipo they can run it and immediately break it and bash on the brand of truck. Number one, inspect your kit before each run. It's your investment. You don't immediately build a race car and run it without some shakedown passes first ... kind of the same thing. The best people make mistakes.
I never really got why people post those. Misery loves company? I have a few friends that when they get into a 1:1 scale car accident, they call me. Not to fix or estimate the car, just to tell the tale. After about a half hour, I ask, how am I involved? When do I fix it? The answer : "Nah man, that car is totalled!"
 
My Stampede broke day 1, not even 1/4 throttle on a flat driveway barely hitting a wooden planter. A-arm and right steering knuckle. Second day out, traxxas 2075 servo burnt out on me driving on a flat dirt parking lot. Got a replacement and the third time the plastic gears stripped in the new servo, again driving in a flat dirt parking lot. Also all of this was on 2s, I'm not one of those people who stupidly run their Traxxas cars on 3s thinking they can handle it, which they can't out of the box.

Then my Rustler... oh boy... I can run my TLR buggy at the indoor hillside carpet track all day every day and not break a thing. Run my cheap little associated reflex rtr as well with no breakages whatsoever repeatedly.

In ONE day on my rustler, the rear shock tower cracked almost completely in half, the gearbox split where the hinge pin connects the a-arm, two turnbuckles bent, shock shaft bent and bottom shock body leak due to it, and the rear wheel cracked right through the middle... all in one day on a small technical SLOW carpet track with no big jumps. Shock tower wasn't a huge deal but I had to replace my shock set which kinda sucked, had to buy an entire new wheel/tire set (thank god it was only $25 on ebay from an open box) but the main one was my gearbox. I had to replace the entire thing because of crappy design. Those pieces should be replaceable on their own like on the hot racing hybrid gearbox I replaced it with. End of day, it was well over $100 in replacements/upgrades to fix on a $250 car that already had over $100 in upgrades to begin with...
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Then there was a week or so ago when a father and son brought their brand new slashes, literally purchased and brought straight to the track. Both of them had broken servos within a half hour. Not to mention the countless other breakages I've personally witnessed there, all traxxas, where all the other stuff holds up fine.


Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you guys are having luck with your traxxas vehicles,. Curious though, how many other brands do you actually own? I had no idea how bad these actually were until I owned something else (associated, arrma, TRL) And don't assume just because people are breaking their traxxas cars, it's "their" fault and bashing hard at a skatepark, running high voltage batteries, etc.

This is literally all I was doing the day my Stampede servo gears stripped out on me. [sarcasm]So glad the servo saver apparently did it's job too.[/sarcasm]

Just my personal experience with the brand has been nothing but bad between 2 vehicles with many others having similar. For someone new to the hobby, which is Traxxas' main customer base, I would never in life recommend them to anyone, based solely on the quality of their products, let alone their completely poopy business practices.

Just my opinion though. ;)
 
Now I'm scared..... I know a kid whose father ran over his son's Rustler and broke a front control arm. Replaced them with blue RPMs. Bent the camber link too.
 
Now I'm scared..... I know a kid whose father ran over his son's Rustler and broke a front control arm. Replaced them with blue RPMs. Bent the camber link too.
That’s not an RC issue thouh
 
I personally love Traxxas. I use their Dual Live charger (which is awesome using the app), their lipos (have 2 2s 5800 and 2 4s 6700 ID batteries), have a Modded 2wd Stampede, a stock Unlimited Desert Racer, and picking up a 4x4 slash ultimate today. Personally, I enjoy their innovation, but that's also what is ruffling some feathers especially with enforcing MSRP and their ID connectors.

As stated before, do what you enjoy - after all you're the one enjoying it. I don't let others tell me how to think, but I may consider their opinions and experience heavily when looking into a brand or product I'm not yet familiar with. At the end of the day, it's the internet - some people are salty at everything for no good reason.

My wife and I both laugh at the videos where someone takes a new kit to the skate park on the highest cell lipo they can run it and immediately break it and bash on the brand of truck. Number one, inspect your kit before each run. It's your investment. You don't immediately build a race car and run it without some shakedown passes first ... kind of the same thing. The best people make mistakes.

Personally, I got an entire year of racing out of my first slash nearly 10 years ago and it still ran like a new one when I sold it. I replaced a bearing carrier when I clipped a corner at full speed. Outside of that, lots of shock rebuilds because I was meticulous in my suspension since it was spec racing, and about 2 or 3 replacement 12T titan motors due to a slight degradation in performance. I raced hard and on a track with big jumps and practiced with 1/8 buggies and truggies while holding my line which sometimes cost me. I never once thought my kit was junk out of the box. Same with my 2wd stampede and my new UDR. They do exceptionally well out of the box for what they are. If you want better performance you have to go to rigid CF or Metal chassis and parts which cost more money and less flex / more prone to breaking if you bash. People just look for videos to back their preconceptions, then ignore anything to the contrary. The internet is great for that. :)
Thank you, you just saved me a lot of typing, keep up the good vibes.?
 
Hi there i have many traxxas cars and just wandering why do so many people hate traxxas
I don't hate Traxxas, They're an innovative and supportive Co. I Like most all
the RC manufacturers save a few who take liberty to steal patents and violate
copyright laws. That's not playing fair. Crooks should be run out of business.
Nobody on here would like it if they spent big money on designers and
developers on a product and someone else profited from it. jmo. ?
 
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I don't hate Traxxas, They're an innovative and supportive Co. I Like most all
the RC manufacturers save a few who take liberty to steal patents and violate
copyright laws. That's not playing fair. Crooks should be run out of business.
Nobody on here would like it if they spent big money on designers and
developers on a product and someone else profited from it. jmo. ?

If you are a small hobby shop traxxas dealer, you are not allowed to sell their products online through your store because they want you to order through them directly or they will pull their products entirely from your store and other "nuances" in the fine print. That's not being supportive at all to the hobby. if you are an "authorized traxxas dealer" you have to sell at least 70% of your total store's sales in traxxas products alone, and cannot sell any online, all in-store. Our local track literally had a day called "traxxas fun day." Our track is located at a drag raceway. Traxxas was at the dragstrip doing a promotion. When our track owner walked over and asked them if they were interested in coming to check out the event we were doing literally 50 feet away, they wouldn't even talk to him. They also are the only company our track owner has reached out to numerous times for event sponsorship that would never even bother to respond. Meanwhile companies like Tekno, associated, TLR, Mugen, Proline, etc were all happy to be involved. Real "supportive" of them.

Also making stuff proprietary like ID plugs so you can't solder your own connections or use other brand batteries for example is not "innovative" at all. It's also not innovative to be selling the same products they made almost 20 years ago, and slapping a new color body on it every few years. The only new thing they've come out with lately that's "new" is that god awful clipless body mount system which makes your body fly off in even the smallest of impacts or rollovers until it flat out breaks in typical traxxas fashion.

Also do you agree with them issuing a video removal order for youtubers who even mention their product name without featuring the product? How are they "stealing" or 'being a crook" by saying "this car is similar to the traxxas slash" in their video.is that being supportive of the hobby or supportive of traxxas.

Was hobby fever "stealing" from traxxas?
https://hobbyfever.com/

Just one of many who fell victim to their practices. Again, this is NOT being supportive of the hobby, it's being supportive of traxxas.

Always seems the people who are super supportive of the company have never owned anything but. I was one of them as well but then I learned better. If you've been exposed to other companies/developers through their products, representatives, track owners who run events with company sponsoring, and shop owners like I have, you would see what a load of crap they are.
 
If you are a small hobby shop traxxas dealer, you are not allowed to sell their products online through your store because they want you to order through them directly or they will pull their products entirely from your store and other "nuances" in the fine print. That's not being supportive at all to the hobby. if you are an "authorized traxxas dealer" you have to sell at least 70% of your total store's sales in traxxas products alone, and cannot sell any online, all in-store. Our local track literally had a day called "traxxas fun day." Our track is located at a drag raceway. Traxxas was at the dragstrip doing a promotion. When our track owner walked over and asked them if they were interested in coming to check out the event we were doing literally 50 feet away, they wouldn't even talk to him. They also are the only company our track owner has reached out to numerous times for event sponsorship that would never even bother to respond. Meanwhile companies like Tekno, associated, TLR, Mugen, Proline, etc were all happy to be involved. Real "supportive" of them.

Also making stuff proprietary like ID plugs so you can't solder your own connections or use other brand batteries for example is not "innovative" at all. It's also not innovative to be selling the same products they made almost 20 years ago, and slapping a new color body on it every few years. The only new thing they've come out with lately that's "new" is that god awful clipless body mount system which makes your body fly off in even the smallest of impacts or rollovers until it flat out breaks in typical traxxas fashion.

Also do you agree with them issuing a video removal order for youtubers who even mention their product name without featuring the product? How are they "stealing" or 'being a crook" by saying "this car is similar to the traxxas slash" in their video.is that being supportive of the hobby or supportive of traxxas.

Was hobby fever "stealing" from traxxas?
https://hobbyfever.com/

Just one of many who fell victim to their practices. Again, this is NOT being supportive of the hobby, it's being supportive of traxxas.

Always seems the people who are super supportive of the company have never owned anything but. I was one of them as well but then I learned better. If you've been exposed to other companies/developers through their products, representatives, track owners who run events with company sponsoring, and shop owners like I have, you would see what a load of crap they are.
Very good points, I agree with you 1000000%.
 
I don't hate Traxxas, They're an innovative and supportive Co. I Like most all
the RC manufacturers save a few who take liberty to steal patents and violate
copyright laws. That's not playing fair. Crooks should be run out of business.
Nobody on here would like it if they spent big money on designers and
developers on a product and someone else profited from it. jmo. ?
The patient that they sued Arrma over is for a steering assembly widely used among many many manufacturers of RC and on some commercial little machinery too might I add (though they don’t hold the patent in those other industries). Therefor I doubt they actually developed that particular technology however they do selectively use it against some but not all competitors. Sadly this means we won’t see incremental evolution of that design.....so in that particular case they didn’t spend big money at all but simply trade marked an existing design that either had no trade mark or the trade mark expired.

I own a Traxxas and have no plans to part with it. They make nice looking trucks that attract a lot of people who buy because of looks alone, which is fine. They do offer good part support but simply don’t make as tough a vechile as a number of other manufacturers for the same price which diminishes their value proportion IMO
 
I have to say that I own about 15 Traxxas vehicles and I really can’t complain either. I know the older ones had to be upgraded in order to run on either 3s or 6s because of the plastic shafts but after that no real issues. My son and I kill them in the snow and at the skate park and have had the same luck as other brands and we own many. We use Arrma axial hpi losi cen and rc4wd. I think the xmaxx’s are probably our favorite best handling most indestructible out of the box trucks so far.
 
RC cars of Boston is pretty nice. Adam is a smart kid, he can fix things I can't. Has almost every Traxxas model in stock. His shop is in Malden. I have not been to Hobby Fever in Billerica since Jason sold it. I did call once and they answered "Hobby Fever". "Jason who??" "Oh, he's been gone for a few months".
 
I think Traxxas makes great products, they have great support, and you can buy parts at almost every hobby shop. I work with a junior high r/c club. Traxxas is the only way to go for us. We have tried other products, but they don't hold up as well. They can still be broken, but not as easily as other companies. Traxxas products are a great way to start in r/c.

I think many people dislike Traxxas the company. They are trying to force hobby shops to become solely Traxxas if you do not they charge you a higher price and that means the retail price goes up. And they put restrictions on websites the sell Traxxas products.
 
As far as their "great support" goes... I had an issue with my TSM on my TQI for my stampede. Had to call support. Guy had me going through the TQI menus, resetting things, and basically got to the point where it was just completely hosed. Everything was backwards, the wheels would go crazy left and right when you hit the throttle due to the tsm, etc to the point he told me I would have to send in the entire truck. Not just the esc and radio,. the entire truck... on my dollar to ship it to them mind you. This is on a truck that was 2 months old.

I fixed the entire thing the next morning with a 2 minute youtube video. The moron was giving me reset instructions for the 4wd model, which is a completely different input combination than the 2wd.

Also those pics I show of my rustler above with all the broken garbage was not even a 4 month old vehicle and hardly used. It was basically like brand new still, not a 4-5 year old vehicle that's been through the ringer. None of that stuff should have broken so easily.

I also find it hard to believe they hold up better than "other products you've tried." would love to know which ones. The only car that may hold up to these claims are the SCT models.. They don't break as much as all the other models because short course trucks in general from any company are much more protected by the large bumpers, side bumpers, body shell that covers the a-arms and helps absorb impacts, smaller wheels/tires so less stress on the entire system/drivetrain, etc.


Sorry I keep going on about this but I just find it hard to believe people actually think this stuff is "good" and "durable" when compared to other companies. Wltoys, JLB racing, DHK Hobby for example make vehicles at either half the price, or the same price with standard aluminum parts that pretty much all Traxxas requires as upgrades out of the box, with full accessories and upgrades available and a MUCH better choice for anyone starting out new in the hobby.

I'm also saying these things from my personal experience, and to give some insight and valid reasons to the guys saying things like "I think they don't like traxxas because..."
No speculation here, these are the EXACT reasons why I won't support that company or their products so there's no confusion. :D
 
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Traxxas is like the Walmart of hobby grade vehicles. You can find them everywhere, they sell crap, and if if you make a superior product they'll try to sue you out of existence. I still own some Traxxas vehicles but only because I dumped my kids college fund into them. They hold up now but there are better RTR brands out there. Arrma fans are super haters because of the b.s. lawsuit against them. Traxxas put a patent on a suspension that's been around for decades. In the hobby world, all brands are supposed to get along. When you become a bully, you lose respect. I personally own 5 different brands and Traxxas is the only one that I thought of getting rid of due to the bad karma they left behind.
 

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