The truck itself seems high quality made of thick, sturdy plastic and also metal. The scoop is metal and high quality. The remote works "tank-style" with two levers that move front to back. A seperate bottom in the middle moves the scoop up and down. My nearly 4 yo toddler got the hang of it easily.

I gave 1 star bc it comes with a rechargeable 4-pack of AA batteries. We charged it up and my son played with it for perhaps a total of 10min (a few min off and on throughout the afternoon) and the batteries died. We assumed we had not charged them fully so plugged the battery pack in overnight. The next day, same thing, it died even more quickly (after maybe 5min of playing) the second time. We tried charging for a third time, no luck.

Perhaps we got a defective battery pack. There is no way to trouble shoot as there is no way to put regular, non-rechargeable batteries in the truck. It will only accept the rechargeable battery pack that came with it. It is also extremely frustrating bc the battery compartment cover is screwed on, so each time we wanted to re-try the battery pack we had to whip out the screwdriver. Very frustrating.

So, all in all, despite the good quality of the truck itself, it's useless if you can't drive it!

Also, the color of the truck is real life is not the same as the picture. Looks yellow in the pic, in real life it is more of a tan/diarrhea colored light brown (for lack of a better descriptive term).

This is one cool crawler for sure, for the big boys like myself for sure. I do have a serious reservation the ads say that the crawler can hoist 10 plus pounds......WRONG. Even with the hoist closest to the machine it almost took a header to the ground with a mere 3 pounds!!!! This was a very disappointing claim by the maker. I had to use the metal square tube that came with the crawler (instead of a fake log as pictured) as a counter balance filled with sand to even give this crane any ability to lift any sort of weight at distance; and even then with its placement at the rear of the crawler its barely of much help. I'm figuring that I need to fill it with a much heavier material such as some lead .22 Cal slugs to fill the same square tube I previously filled with sand, ya know just for density's sake. I really want this crane to be more capable without having to add a slight eyesore to the rear of the rig. I am happy though that I got the square tube instead of the dumb plastic log that would have been of no use to me at all in this issue. Now let me say this in the pictures it shows this rig holding up an excavator; yeah right they must have nailed the crawler to the dirt to pull that off!!!

Enough trash talk now. This crawler performs all of its functions short of its weight capacity flawlessly. It's a bit slow at doing all it's advertised functions but, boy it does them all sooooo cool. The string they used to rig up the crane is nice and sturdy and looks like it will hold up for quite some time. I wish I could give it the extra 2 stars since its one awesome mean machine in function, runs like a top. The noise functions are a bit annoying I'd have to say so, I quickly turn them off. I have little tolerance for noisy things. The flashing lights are cool I guess they can be turned off as well but, I like em so they stay on. The best part is the battery life as long as you don't drive the tracks all around on rough terrain and just use the crane functions the battery goes and goes; that's a huge plus for me. Granted I haven't used the crawler outside only on commercial carpeting so, it doesn't get much resistance to the tracks when its moved. I'm guessing off road in a rougher environment it will kill the battery pretty good. The hook is a nice good chunk of alloy that stays put when your trying to hook a target so there isn't much sway in the line again another plus, first time out of the gate attempting to hook a target I had no need to get up and set the hook myself. The price is right on point considering the complexity of the crawler and how intricate it is but, remember though it has limited uses it only has a hook.

So, all in all you are going to have to come up with things to do with this hoist. Me for example; I built a wooden box for my excavator or front end loader to fill so I could pick it and drop it to my flat bed and off it goes. But, I sure have to be careful to not overfill the basket or TIMBER over goes the crawler.

I can't see how the maker could fix this issue of the tipping due to the fulcrum and lever problems. Inspection of the crawler has shown no other solutions to the balancing act. The seller LIED about the weight capability statement and it really makes me MAD MAD MAD!!!!!!!

May give an edit in the future if I can solve the counterbalance issue, and it'll get my full 5 stars since it deserves 6 but when it tipped over on me I cant give a rating better than a 3. Happy hooking and slinging.

The manufacturer in China sent me a nice email about the product. The product is well made, durable and the battery life is good. The remote works at a good distance and my 30 month old toddler was using the remote without instruction properly within 2 minutes. The front loader is metal. The toy is a bit heavy and the metal loader makes it an outdoor toy for our household. I like it. My little boy loves it. It would be nice if they offered a second battery pack for sale, though the battery pack does have a long life.

The kid we gave it to just loves that we played all night with it it can really pick up things and drive it around and dump it the kids just had the best time laughing and chasing and playing with it.

When I got this one I also was surprised but I wish it was more with more metal but I was really surprised on all of the function on the Remote control for this one here is what the Remote control will do Just like it says on the box but what impressed me is the function of the legs on the lowboy will go up and down the ramp on the back for loading and unloading will go up and down you can also unhook the fifth wheel and pull out from under headlights and tell lights works even the horn and there's a sounder of airbrakes