Best review I've seen on this! You can't speak about these and not bring up upgrades, they're so cheap you can end up with a killer RC for the price of that grom. If you really want to go all out I suggest starting with the older version with a 540 motor. The first build I ever did was a a959b with a 3650 4s brushless setup, the plastic spur takes it well because it's so small, put bearings in the hubs and oil in the shocks, ajustable tie rods to bring the toe in and you end up with overpowered madness in small package, tons of fun!
Yeah you'll probably want to get an aluminum steering rack because they do tend to snap but like I showed in the video you can basically get an entire aluminum upgrade kit for it for less than 50 bucks so that's not exactly going to break the bank. Overall especially at the coupon price it's a pretty compelling little car.
I think it has some of the same parts but not all the same parts. I'd say it's pretty similar to the MJX and even the Grom but the Grom is far superior and build quality and ease of repair and upgrade.
I really like your videos, very nice pace on them, not too boring at any point... I had the old 18th scale from them, it was first car I bought in 2019 when I got back into the hobby, it is just collecting dust on the shelf now... For a cheap small RC, I would rather buy MJX or HBX... Regarding that so-called phone holder on the remote, I've seen on several videos, it is probably not recommended to actually trust it to hold your phone, ha ha...
Absolutely. And something like this is good because the platform's been around a very long time so replacement parts and upgrades are really cheap. You can get basically a complete upgrade package for the car for less than $50.
It’s half the price of the Grom for a reason, it’s half the quality. Not trying to beat up on the bang-goods. But they’re SO hard to work on and parts are nearly impossible to find unless you look online. I’ve put my Grom through the wringer and it’s still going strong with no problems or breakage. And I’ll never understand why people are so concerned that it’s not brushless. It’s plenty fast enough for what it is. If you don’t want brushed motors, buy a quality name brand RC thats brushless. 🤷🏻♂️ Great video regardless. That thing does look cool.
Yeah I agree. It's definitely not up to the quality but as long as you understand what it is you're buying I think that for the price it can be a pretty compelling little car. If local parts availability is a primary concern it's definitely going to be something you want to skip but personally I buy all my parts online anyway and parts for this platform are pretty readily available and very cheap But Yeah the Grom is definitely a better car :-)
Save for the grom. These other cheap bang goods are terrible to work on. The Phillips hardware stinks. I break my hbm16 constantly and my buddy got a grom and his is in another league when it comes to quality. I know some folks are on a super budget but be prepared to upgrade all the bearings, shocks, towers, and gears.
Oh yeah definitely Like I said in the video the Grom is the better vehicle but to make the Grom brushless like this one is you're looking at spending probably close to you $170 total and that's assuming you already have a radio That's getting dangerously close to three times the price of this vehicle. A lot of inadequacies can be forgiven for that price and this platform's been around long enough that most of the weak points are known and upgrades are cheap. That being said I do consider pretty much all of these cheap Chinese vehicles to be essentially disposable. Just run the crap out of them and when you get tired of fixing them awesome in the garbage and get another one.
@@DoRC yeah that is very true I haven’t tried brushless on the grom yet. I just want to save some folks some trouble with these cheaper ones. They are a blast but ones you start having to put money into em you feel like it not a nice enough vehicle to put money into but that’s my personal take. I appreciate the content you’ve been putting out man. Keep it up!
@@TheLastTater agreed. This is definitely not a vehicle you want to invest a ton of money into. Just get it have fun with it and if something breaks then consider upgrading it for a few dollars.
@@DoRC I'd easily invest the $170, without a second thought. The Grom will grow with you and still be running 10 yrs from now when this crap is littering land fill sites!
@@jerryvolpini7987 I definitely don't disagree with you. I think they both have their place. Some people just want to drop a few bucks and go thrash something and I think this is a good option for that. For people who are looking for a more long-term investment that they can upgrade long-term and keep for a long time the Grom definitely is the way to go.
I wonder if you could make those diffs fit in the grom until Arrma gets there shit together and gets there parts off back order. They take way too long for stuff like that.
Yeah I saw that. With these cheaper RCs quality control is always going to be a bit lacking. Sounds like he just had something binding and didn't bother to go in and see what it was :-) If you spend $700 for an RC car I think the expectation is that it should work out of the box and even then come half the time you have to fix something but personally if you spend $80 on RC car I think the expectations need to be reduced quite a bit.
@@DoRC You are correct there! Love the channel!👍 I like the smaller RC's, it just stinks it is kind of a crap shoot sometimes if you get a good one or not. Especially with these small over seas companies.
@@ReactionRC Yeah it's definitely a risk you take. Fortunately most places that you buy these things from are usually pretty good at dealing with returns if there is a major problem and minor problems, especially on these older platforms, are usually just a few dollars away from being fixed.
I think they serve two main purposes. The first one is looks and the second and I think more important one from the manufacturer's point of view is protection. A wing does a very good job at protecting the rear of the vehicle from damage.
@@DoRC I would rather they made bashers with bumpers, front and back, I mean its the reason the mojave and slash and other like it are perceived to be "tougher" same chassis, same weight, but one is stronger just from losing the wing, and adding a way to diffuse the stress from rear bumps and crashes. But i do agree, they look badass! haha
@@fishininjun I don't think short course truck style RCs are really tougher because the rear bumper. I'm sure it has something to do with it but I think it's primarily because they tend to have shorter arms but more importantly have a body that completely covers the suspension and wheels. This means that in a crash it's the body that's primarily taking the impact and it's pretty unlikely that the car is going to come down on one arm which is usually what ends up breaking something.
@@fishininjun That being said. I prefer bashers with bumpers too. I usually try to figure out ways to take the wings off and add bumpers. Of course part of that is because I like to self right My cars
Do you know if the Hobao MTX updated servo saver would fit the MT+ II truck? I've been trying to find an answer to this for a while, but can't seem to get one!
Yeah given that this platform's been around so long the weak points are known quantities and are very cheap to fix. That kids that I showed had everything you would need and a bunch of stuff you don't and was still less than 50 bucks :-)
@@G35Jeesh For sure. They're definitely not cheap but I think if I felt confident they would make for good videos I'd do it but I'm not really sure the interest would be that strong.
I almost laughed when you said support from Horizon. Horizon is becoming trash when it comes to customer support. I recently found out that they don't even have a phone # for customer support anymore. I only found that out when I went to call billing after they charged my card for 3 mini LMTs instead of the ONE I ordered. Was out an extra like $600 for a week while they fixed it. And that's just my most recent bad experience with them:(
H.H sent me out a new ESC receiver and servo no problem. I think their 'customer support' is different from Warranty service, which is the real issue with Banggood, WLToys and MJX. MJX said 7 weeks ago they sent me some steering arm hardware and I'm still waiting. Horizon Hobby took only 2 days in the mail to send me my stuff for free.
I didn't try 3S but it doesn't say that it is 3S compatible. I got 29 miles an hour with the included battery. That's plenty fast enough for how small the car is for general bashing
Yeah I completely agree with that. That being said if you calculate how much it costs to make the grom brushless you have to ask yourself is it 1/3 as the grom because that's basically what it'll end up costing. I think once you factor in cost especially the cost of upgrades the proposition changes a little bit. I wouldn't consider this to be a serious Grom competitor because it's not. This is more of a cheap semi-disposable thing that is still quite a bit of fun and probably the most fun you can get for 80 bucks in this hobby.
I don't think the Grom is necessarily overpriced. It's a very good quality vehicle and comes with warranty and support that you're just not going to get with these Chinese vehicles but it can be hard to justify paying twice as much. If you include the cost to switch over to brushless it's more like three times as much. That is to say I think both vehicles have their place.
Considering that the wltoys is basically built on an old platform with parts out of the parts bin, and the grom is designed from the ground up its not hard to figure out why the wltoys is half the price
@@woutervanwijk4369 Yeah for sure. There's very little r&d cost left in that 949 platform but of course the end user really doesn't care how much the company has to pay They only care how much they are paying.
Yeah you don't see that too often but fortunately it's just in the wheel bearings so you're talking about maybe a dollars worth of bearings to install to take care of it. Also at the wheels it's not as important because they don't spin as fast so honestly probably just leave it alone.
They are but they're also cheap and a known variable so upgrades and parts are cheap and readily available. I think it $77 this one might be worth considering.
Not interested in the china junk at all. The replacement parts and supply chain are a disaster. I’ll stick with Arrma, Traxxas, Losi and Team Associated
It really depends on the model. This is based on a platform it's been around a very long time and in general replacement parts are cheap and readily available. Obviously things won't be as reliable as from like Horizon or Traxxas although their supplies haven't been great lately either but for the price as long as you know the limitations it's a fun little toy. Thanks for watching!
I'm not sure that saying it will get thrown in the trash the first time it breaks as a fair judgment. No you can't get parts from the local hobby shop but you can get them on Amazon and usually 2 day. Obviously the quality isn't as high as the Grom but it is a full hobby grade RC with complete parts support as well as upgrades for pretty much anything you would want. That being said I do agree that they are semi-disposable. Probably more likely just to get thrashed and then eventually junked than a grom but at half the price that's not necessarily the worst thing in the world.
I could definitely understand that opinion. The Grom is a higher quality vehicle but considering that it would cost essentially three times as much to end up with a brushless grom as this one costs I think the value is there.
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Best review I've seen on this! You can't speak about these and not bring up upgrades, they're so cheap you can end up with a killer RC for the price of that grom. If you really want to go all out I suggest starting with the older version with a 540 motor. The first build I ever did was a a959b with a 3650 4s brushless setup, the plastic spur takes it well because it's so small, put bearings in the hubs and oil in the shocks, ajustable tie rods to bring the toe in and you end up with overpowered madness in small package, tons of fun!
Absolutely. Upgrading this thing is ridiculously cheap. Thanks for watching!
That’s still dam good for that price point. I mean, there is very little upgrading to do other than putting oil in, I’ll take it.
Yeah you'll probably want to get an aluminum steering rack because they do tend to snap but like I showed in the video you can basically get an entire aluminum upgrade kit for it for less than 50 bucks so that's not exactly going to break the bank.
Overall especially at the coupon price it's a pretty compelling little car.
It's awesome for the price. A perfect gift. Thank you for the breakdown.
You're welcome and thanks for watching!
Great video! Does it have the same parts as a a959 and or a979? How would you rank the durability of this, mjx 14210 and the grom?
I think it has some of the same parts but not all the same parts. I'd say it's pretty similar to the MJX and even the Grom but the Grom is far superior and build quality and ease of repair and upgrade.
I really like your videos, very nice pace on them, not too boring at any point... I had the old 18th scale from them, it was first car I bought in 2019 when I got back into the hobby, it is just collecting dust on the shelf now... For a cheap small RC, I would rather buy MJX or HBX...
Regarding that so-called phone holder on the remote, I've seen on several videos, it is probably not recommended to actually trust it to hold your phone, ha ha...
Maybe not though I used it for recording All of my bashing in that video and it held it just fine.
I think there is a good market for these budget friendly options , these help bring people in the hobby
Absolutely. And something like this is good because the platform's been around a very long time so replacement parts and upgrades are really cheap. You can get basically a complete upgrade package for the car for less than $50.
It’s half the price of the Grom for a reason, it’s half the quality. Not trying to beat up on the bang-goods. But they’re SO hard to work on and parts are nearly impossible to find unless you look online. I’ve put my Grom through the wringer and it’s still going strong with no problems or breakage. And I’ll never understand why people are so concerned that it’s not brushless. It’s plenty fast enough for what it is. If you don’t want brushed motors, buy a quality name brand RC thats brushless. 🤷🏻♂️ Great video regardless. That thing does look cool.
Yeah I agree. It's definitely not up to the quality but as long as you understand what it is you're buying I think that for the price it can be a pretty compelling little car.
If local parts availability is a primary concern it's definitely going to be something you want to skip but personally I buy all my parts online anyway and parts for this platform are pretty readily available and very cheap
But Yeah the Grom is definitely a better car :-)
Save for the grom. These other cheap bang goods are terrible to work on. The Phillips hardware stinks. I break my hbm16 constantly and my buddy got a grom and his is in another league when it comes to quality. I know some folks are on a super budget but be prepared to upgrade all the bearings, shocks, towers, and gears.
Oh yeah definitely Like I said in the video the Grom is the better vehicle but to make the Grom brushless like this one is you're looking at spending probably close to you $170 total and that's assuming you already have a radio That's getting dangerously close to three times the price of this vehicle. A lot of inadequacies can be forgiven for that price and this platform's been around long enough that most of the weak points are known and upgrades are cheap.
That being said I do consider pretty much all of these cheap Chinese vehicles to be essentially disposable. Just run the crap out of them and when you get tired of fixing them awesome in the garbage and get another one.
@@DoRC yeah that is very true I haven’t tried brushless on the grom yet. I just want to save some folks some trouble with these cheaper ones. They are a blast but ones you start having to put money into em you feel like it not a nice enough vehicle to put money into but that’s my personal take. I appreciate the content you’ve been putting out man. Keep it up!
@@TheLastTater agreed. This is definitely not a vehicle you want to invest a ton of money into. Just get it have fun with it and if something breaks then consider upgrading it for a few dollars.
@@DoRC I'd easily invest the $170, without a second thought. The Grom will grow with you and still be running 10 yrs from now when this crap is littering land fill sites!
@@jerryvolpini7987 I definitely don't disagree with you. I think they both have their place. Some people just want to drop a few bucks and go thrash something and I think this is a good option for that. For people who are looking for a more long-term investment that they can upgrade long-term and keep for a long time the Grom definitely is the way to go.
Does it have the same parts as the a979 and a959? Would you say it’s as durable as a grom or mjx 14210?
I think it is some of the same parts but I also believe some of them are different. I think they're all pretty similar in durability
I wonder if you could make those diffs fit in the grom until Arrma gets there shit together and gets there parts off back order. They take way too long for stuff like that.
I don't think it's likely. The gear pitch is different and the way the gears attach to the center drive shaft is different.
Discipline RC had a rough time with it! Lol.
Yeah I saw that. With these cheaper RCs quality control is always going to be a bit lacking. Sounds like he just had something binding and didn't bother to go in and see what it was :-) If you spend $700 for an RC car I think the expectation is that it should work out of the box and even then come half the time you have to fix something but personally if you spend $80 on RC car I think the expectations need to be reduced quite a bit.
@@DoRC You are correct there! Love the channel!👍 I like the smaller RC's, it just stinks it is kind of a crap shoot sometimes if you get a good one or not. Especially with these small over seas companies.
@@ReactionRC Yeah it's definitely a risk you take. Fortunately most places that you buy these things from are usually pretty good at dealing with returns if there is a major problem and minor problems, especially on these older platforms, are usually just a few dollars away from being fixed.
Here's the coupon. This is not an affiliate link!
ban.ggood.vip/14xpZ
BGd7e783
Never understood the reason for a wing on bashers. Love the content.
I think they serve two main purposes. The first one is looks and the second and I think more important one from the manufacturer's point of view is protection. A wing does a very good job at protecting the rear of the vehicle from damage.
@@DoRC I would rather they made bashers with bumpers, front and back, I mean its the reason the mojave and slash and other like it are perceived to be "tougher" same chassis, same weight, but one is stronger just from losing the wing, and adding a way to diffuse the stress from rear bumps and crashes. But i do agree, they look badass! haha
@@fishininjun I don't think short course truck style RCs are really tougher because the rear bumper. I'm sure it has something to do with it but I think it's primarily because they tend to have shorter arms but more importantly have a body that completely covers the suspension and wheels. This means that in a crash it's the body that's primarily taking the impact and it's pretty unlikely that the car is going to come down on one arm which is usually what ends up breaking something.
@@DoRC Excellent points.
@@fishininjun That being said. I prefer bashers with bumpers too. I usually try to figure out ways to take the wings off and add bumpers. Of course part of that is because I like to self right My cars
They do put out some fun budget friendly models 👍
Agreed. As long as you keep your expectations in line with the cost it's kind of hard to be disappointed with one of these :)
Do you know if the Hobao MTX updated servo saver would fit the MT+ II truck? I've been trying to find an answer to this for a while, but can't seem to get one!
I'm not 100% sure but I think it would. Most of the chassis parts are basically the same between the two. I would be surprised if it didn't
Bad part is the tie rods and servo arm are weak. But a cheap Amazon metal upgrade would solve that
Yeah given that this platform's been around so long the weak points are known quantities and are very cheap to fix. That kids that I showed had everything you would need and a bunch of stuff you don't and was still less than 50 bucks :-)
for half the price no doubt about it.
Yeah it's a tiny bit more than half the price but not much and you get an awful lot for that money.
Nice Video!
Thanks!
will you be testing traxxas new steering servos?
Probably not. I'm sure I'll end up with them eventually but my experience Traxxas servos just don't represent good value for money.
@@DoRC I guess that makes sense when you have so many proven servos for less than theres. Just noticed they released them.
@@G35Jeesh Yeah I saw it too. I'd like to mess with them but I'm not sure that the cost would be worth the experience if you know what I mean.
@@DoRC I saw the price too and was like 😨 I understand for sure
@@G35Jeesh For sure. They're definitely not cheap but I think if I felt confident they would make for good videos I'd do it but I'm not really sure the interest would be that strong.
I almost laughed when you said support from Horizon. Horizon is becoming trash when it comes to customer support. I recently found out that they don't even have a phone # for customer support anymore. I only found that out when I went to call billing after they charged my card for 3 mini LMTs instead of the ONE I ordered. Was out an extra like $600 for a week while they fixed it. And that's just my most recent bad experience with them:(
They definitely have been having some problems since July when they change their back in system. Hopefully one of these days will get it squared away.
H.H sent me out a new ESC receiver and servo no problem.
I think their 'customer support' is different from Warranty service, which is the real issue with Banggood, WLToys and MJX.
MJX said 7 weeks ago they sent me some steering arm hardware and I'm still waiting.
Horizon Hobby took only 2 days in the mail to send me my stuff for free.
Pretty good mini sledge clone
Yeah for the price especially with the coupon it's kind of hard to go wrong.
@@DoRC I have the grom and the hyper go. I definitely dig the mini cars. Toss them in my lunch box and take them to work 😂
@avalanche95 Yeah the Grom definitely is the better vehicle but I'm not sure if it's twice as good.
Is these 2s only and top speed
I didn't try 3S but it doesn't say that it is 3S compatible. I got 29 miles an hour with the included battery. That's plenty fast enough for how small the car is for general bashing
Tires look suspiciously like the Traxxas sledgehammers
Yeah I think I mentioned that in the videos :-) I wish they had used a slightly softer compound. They're kind of hard. Not too bad off-road though.
GROM - all day long!
Definitely a good option!
The body is burning my eyes out.
It doesn't look too bad in person but there's definitely a lot going on.
There's not one small Chinese junker that comes close to the high grade quality of the Arma grom.
Yeah I completely agree with that. That being said if you calculate how much it costs to make the grom brushless you have to ask yourself is it 1/3 as the grom because that's basically what it'll end up costing.
I think once you factor in cost especially the cost of upgrades the proposition changes a little bit. I wouldn't consider this to be a serious Grom competitor because it's not. This is more of a cheap semi-disposable thing that is still quite a bit of fun and probably the most fun you can get for 80 bucks in this hobby.
In lone conparison to the granite grom this one is considerable, the grom kinda overpriced imo
I don't think the Grom is necessarily overpriced. It's a very good quality vehicle and comes with warranty and support that you're just not going to get with these Chinese vehicles but it can be hard to justify paying twice as much. If you include the cost to switch over to brushless it's more like three times as much.
That is to say I think both vehicles have their place.
Considering that the wltoys is basically built on an old platform with parts out of the parts bin, and the grom is designed from the ground up its not hard to figure out why the wltoys is half the price
@@woutervanwijk4369 Yeah for sure. There's very little r&d cost left in that 949 platform but of course the end user really doesn't care how much the company has to pay They only care how much they are paying.
Bushings!?
Yeah you don't see that too often but fortunately it's just in the wheel bearings so you're talking about maybe a dollars worth of bearings to install to take care of it. Also at the wheels it's not as important because they don't spin as fast so honestly probably just leave it alone.
Those things are tough as nails. You have to make a pretty big mistake to kill them.
Yeah I broke mine but I was trying to break it. Especially with a few cheap upgrades they are pretty durable.
These 1/18 platforms are getting quite repetitive only new bodies wouldnt waste my time buying one
They are but they're also cheap and a known variable so upgrades and parts are cheap and readily available. I think it $77 this one might be worth considering.
Not interested in the china junk at all. The replacement parts and supply chain are a disaster.
I’ll stick with Arrma, Traxxas, Losi and Team Associated
It really depends on the model. This is based on a platform it's been around a very long time and in general replacement parts are cheap and readily available. Obviously things won't be as reliable as from like Horizon or Traxxas although their supplies haven't been great lately either but for the price as long as you know the limitations it's a fun little toy. Thanks for watching!
Haha mini sledge
Yeah pretty much. It's a decent little car and since it's on the a949 platform there's a ton of upgrades in parts available for it for not much money.
Its a toy, it will break then get thrown in the trash. The grom can be fixed with parts from a local hobby shop.
I'm not sure that saying it will get thrown in the trash the first time it breaks as a fair judgment. No you can't get parts from the local hobby shop but you can get them on Amazon and usually 2 day. Obviously the quality isn't as high as the Grom but it is a full hobby grade RC with complete parts support as well as upgrades for pretty much anything you would want.
That being said I do agree that they are semi-disposable. Probably more likely just to get thrashed and then eventually junked than a grom but at half the price that's not necessarily the worst thing in the world.
No
I could definitely understand that opinion. The Grom is a higher quality vehicle but considering that it would cost essentially three times as much to end up with a brushless grom as this one costs I think the value is there.