I bought this for Christmas for my son who is 5 years old. I liked it so much I bought myself brushless epx Pro which I have also reviewed and is a fantastic truck as well. He has been running this truck pretty hard (and crashing a lot) for 3 months now and I haven't had to replace anything except the front bumper. I have driving this truck as well and I have definitely bashed it and I have to say it's extremely durable and I don't think you can beat it for the price. Since it's hobby grade you can always upgrade if you want to give it a boost in performance or durability. There are a few things you need to do before you run it for first time and I do have one or two recommendations so here goes:

First thing we did before we drove it was set the gear mesh. This step is imperative as it ensures the gears won't strip from being too loose and also ensures if they're not too tight which could burn up the motor or ESC. We really didn't have to do much else out of the box except for charge the battery.

I definitely do recommend getting an upgraded charger when you buy this truck they really don't cost that much and they cut your charge time and a half. You're going to run nimh batteries I also recommend getting at least a 3800 mAh battery. I would even go so far as to recommend purchase the battery box as an upgrade and run this with 2s lipo battery, you won't be disappointed, it's a serious performance enhancement.

The batteries that was included failed after about 2 weeks and I called Redcat and they told me how to file a warranty claim. Within one week I received not only a new battery but one that was 200mah larger than the one that came in the box with the truck, free upgrades are always cool.

One more thing to remember, if you do upgrade to LiPO batteries you need to switch the ESC to Lipo mode by moving the jumper. This will enable the low voltage cutoff so you don't ruin your battery. You can see how to do this by Consulting the ESC manual that is included with the truck.

In conclusion I definitely recommend this truck to anyone starting out in RC. You don't have to spend a ton of money to get a really good amount of performance and durability. This is an extremely well-built machine in general but even better when you consider the price point. If they can handle my five-year-old I think I can handle pretty much anything

This vehicle is very strong and can run on high grass. Absolutely, it is attributed to 4 wheel drive. Everything seems to be great, except wheel alignment. There was limitation to adjust toe a certain degree. Specially the rear wheel is too much toe-in condition. Battery runs about 10 min (not measured exactly) and my kids is pleasant enough with this running time. Another notice, wheel bearing, which is made of plastic. It should be more advanced one in this range of price RC vehicle.

This RC is awesome only wish the parts would hold up better since one piece broke. I can still drive it so not big deal. The 2000mAh battery is junk since you can only get about 5-8 min and the charger takes too long, over 8 hours to charge. Recommend getting the Redcat HX-5000mh-b v4.0 5000Ni-MH battery (get about 25-30 min depending on how you drive it) with Tenergy TB6-B charger with power supply combo (also get the female Tamiya to banana adapter). Charge time is about 1:15 which makes it a whole lot more fun than waiting a whole 8 hours. Tenery chargers have several options on what you can charge so check out "how to" video online.

Truck is great for beginners that want to drive it on rough terrain. If you want more speed I recommend getting the Volcano EPX PRO which has the upgraded brushless motor and LIPO batteries.

This was my little brother's Christmas gift this year. He really loves it! Growing up, I've had lots of RC cars, but never one like this. I guess it falls under a category of it's own - kind of in between a "professional" hobby RC race car (like a gasoline powered) and smaller electric RC cars that you can buy off the shelf at any retail store.

This goes fast! It also has a great range for remote control. The only thing that isn't really that great is the battery which is kind of expected (also why I didn't take a star off for it). It takes about 3 hours to charge to play for maybe a total of 15-20 mins. Now, that being said, I do have to disclose that's 15-20 minutes of taking it full speed through grass/dirt/bumps. I'm sure you'd get a lot more use out of it playing with it on concrete.

This ended up being an awesome gift for an 11 year old. I'm 30 and I feel I would like one just as well!

I got this truck a year ago at Christmas for my youngest son who was 6 at the time I thought it look like a pretty decent truck for a little less money because he was young and didn't feel he needed the higher DOLLAR models. For the most part that is exactly what we got however I would caution getting a brushed motor in this vehicle we have had a tendency of blowing them. There are many upgrades that you can do to the vehicle and you can order brushless Motors and ESC but I believe they have a model that comes with a brushless motor and ESC maybe something to consider. We probably blew motors because we switch to LiPo batteries but the ESC is rated for 2 & 3 cell lipo batteries. Overall given the exact same circumstance I probably still would order the truck just wanting to put my experience out there with it and maybe it'll help you make your decision.