Have had two of these for two years now. This is an AWESOME set for the price.

Has multiple gearing modes, reverse, full steering, great tires, tons of power. They go and go and go some more, outside, inside, uphill, downhill, wherever. I have two kids, 5 and 7, that love them and love to experiment with them and see what they can do.

Some have complained about the lack of a dedicated battery pack and using AA batteries instead, but to me this is a definite bonus. If you have a big pile of NiMH rechargeable AA batteries as more and more of us do in this electronics-centric age, it means that you still have something rechargeable that gets good mileage on a single charge, but also that you can continue to play and play for as long as you have charged-up batteries available, without having to buy additional costly, specialty battery packs.

And when the kids are done playing, you can pull those batteries right back out and put them into circulation for other things again.

And if a bunch of kids come over and everyone plays with these for two hours and you need more batteries, you don't have to interrupt the fun and tell people that "it's charging," you can pull charged-up AAs out of other things like flashlights or clocks and get them to work in a pinch. Or even pop over to the corner store for a set of alkalines in a pinch. :-)

But the big thing for me is that they have been durable. They have continued to work as new through all kinds of play and abuse, and to work well, two years later. That's the difference between a quality toy and a "junk toy" in my opinion.

Awesome car for the price, definitely the best one in this price range (mine was about $15 - I wouldn't pay more than $35 for it - and I got it the morning after I ordered it). It's the cheapest one I've found with full proportional steering and throttle, as well as 4WD, and it's even 1/12 scale (big) as an added bonus. The suspension, while not the best, has tons of travel for doing jumps, and this thing has tons of torque, so it can even do 90Ëš climbs and flip over on its back. However, this is not for you if you want to just use AA batteries with it. It just won't work. It wouldn't even move with a brand new set of AAs for me, so I took 2 LiPos and used it in place of the AA batteries. Now it goes approximately 5-10 MPH, which is still pretty slow, but it's geared for torque, not speed. The gearbox is not designed to be messed with, so unless you're pretty skilled, I wouldn't even try. Probably the coolest feature, however, is that when opened, you can place a second servo in the rear wheel assembly for doing incredibly tight turns. However, I wouldn't do this unless you have a hobby-grade (this is a toy meant for children) transmitter/receiver/ESC (about $50 extra) sitting around, as the stock all-in-one board not only uses an analog mini servo, but the board isn't compatible with 2 servos. And if you did have those things, you probably wouldn't even be looking at this rock crawler.

I bought another RC car for just under $30 that was just forward backward left and right. I thought it was a good deal til I saw this one with digital proportional control. I read the reviews and bought one without the optional battery. Removed the AA holder and soldered in a 2pin JST wire connector.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0132CPZSY/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I also bought two Turnigy 1000mAh Lipo Packs
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0072AEHIC/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

also the EV-PEAK E4 charger.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01NCRDNGJ/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

With the Lipo battery it really hauls. :-)
Then I saw a the used Danchee Trail Hunter's were going for about $10 with tax so I bought it. The great thing was whoever bought and returned it must have been so disappointed by its performance with Alkaline AA's that they forgot to remove the brand new AA's. I got 10 free like new AA batteries I can use in the remote. :-)

I tried it out with the Alkaline AA's and like all the reviews say it moves slow and certainly not in grass. I immediately modded it for the extra 1000mh LiPo battery and it was hauling the mail just like the first one. :-)

Conclusion, don't buy this if your not going to buy the optional Ni-Mh battery or mod it for a LiPo battery. But if you read the reviews you would already know that.

In short I think this was an incredible deal for only $10 to $12, LiPo battery ($13), charger ($36), plus connectors.

We got this for my son for Christmas. First off, let me say, he loves it. Absolutely LOVES it.

We ordered this one after reading numerous reviews of different remote control monster trucks, and the reviews on this one sealed the deal for us. My husband was excited about all the tech specs, and how it can be customized if you want. It's not a junky toy that our kids will outgrow for some number of years, and it looks like it will last longer than our last remote control truck (I think that sad product only made it a week).

So far, it's survived a week or so of rough and tumble driving by a five year old and his younger brother. Let's just say they need to work on their cornering skills when driving indoors. Despite their lack of driving finesse, the vehicle has held up very well.

The only downside? While you can ADD ON rechargeable batteries, it does NOT come with one. You can, of course, use AA batteries, but we didn't get as long of driving time as hoped for. I wish we'd read the product description a little bit better, so we'd of known to add on the rechargeable battery (and charger) offered by DancheeDanchee 7.2V 800mAh Ni-Mh Battery & Charger for Trail Hunter 1/12th Scale Remote Control Rock Crawler.

Overall, this is a solid RC toy. My boys got the hang of using it very quickly, and I anticipate that the rechargeable battery add-on will make the fun last even longer.

If anything changes, I'll post an update -- otherwise assume we have a long-lasting, durable, and fun RC vehicle!

I've have many RC cars, trucks, helicopters, planes, drones, boats you name it I have it.
I was searching for my 5yo first R/C nothing expensive and nothing fast as I know he would crash many times until he gets a feel for it R/C.

I went with a crawler since it would not be fast a should be able to take some abuse.

Now Christmas Day I loaded in all the AA battery's and tried it out, Pathetic !! Would not even get up the small grass hill in my backyard I felt like this was a total waste of money so before I gave up I noticed when I purchased the truck there was a optional rechargeable battery pack.. so I looked around and took the pack from my helicopter which is a 1000 mah Lipo, I cut the plug off the stock battery box and solder it to the lipo from the helicopter and charged it up.

Game on! Plugged it up and turned it on I was not expecting much more but I hit the throttle and was blown away at the difrence!! The thing was quick! Nothing like my brushless VXL stampede but for a cheap R/C and rockcrawler at that it's now pretty fast we set up logs, rocks, piles of leaves you name it flys right over everything with ease we just came inside and he got about 30 mins run time out of the 1000mah lipo .. so I am very pleased with it after swapping in a lipo. But if you plan on running AA battery's forget it, or buy the optional rechargeable pack.. if you want to take it to the next level get a 1000 mah lipo I even seen some 1300 mah packs on amazon that will work if you want even more run time.