too bad it looks like everything except the gearbox is different... I have an SC10 roller that I was saving for spares that I would have totally LOVED to convert.

maybe not... idk.
sometime in the future I'll compare exploded views and calculate a conversion price.
One of those would look pretty sweet sitting next to my EXO

slash tires do NOT work well on carpet. losi XXX/SCTE tires work well for a short time but glaze quickly. i'm sure there are other examples. these are just the few i've personally run on carpet.

my issue was with the statement that they were "useless" (and the usual sarcastic responses to contrarian thoughts).

stil. -_-

How about if I amend my statement for improved accuracy and political correctness. SC10 RTR tread tires are almost entirely useless at the rear for nearly all uses encountered by nearly all potential and actual buyers of the vehicle.

A semantic argument could be made that HPI's stock Baja tires are not useless either. On a certain specific consistency of damp loam they work quite well. I will still be able to go to sleep tonight & every night calling them point-blank useless. I have no shame in making that statement whatsoever. Same with 1/16th scale Slash 4x4 tires. They may hook up on crushed pearlite. I'm still gonna call them useless because they don't work anywhere else, the vehicle is not a Crushed Pearlite Course Racer, and 99+% of buyers will never drive on crushed pearlite.

No excuse for these sorts of things that work respectably under almost no real-world customer conditions to continue to be brought to market, and I will not stop being completely sharp and unrelenting in my criticism.

There really is no excuse for the tires that they send us with these race intended vehicles.

Tires aside (everyone replaces those on RTRs of any brand) I'm kinda disappointed that they don't use the new big bore shocks.

Yes I know they're heavier and raise center of gravity. So what? AE is still winning major races with them in the much lighter B4 chassis.

A fractured product line isn't going to help Associated in the least. Standardized rebuild bits has been a major selling point for me in the past. If they're pushing the new shocks, then by golly they need to sell them in all their models!

The RTRtires are good for one other thing, installing on a car you are selling used.

There is some excuse.

We all know that RTR tires are always going to be hard-ish, because soft tires wear out too quickly and the sort of people who buy most of the RTRs would complain.

So you're stuck with hard compound. What about tread pattern?

Your options are limited here as well. There are only so many tread designs that are capable of working well, and most (all?) of them are already patented/trademarked. So if you want to release a new RC, you can either pay out the nose to license a pattern, "borrow" a pattern without paying (and earn the wrath of Jang), or just say screw it and come out with something new that almost certainly won't be as good as all the proven (patented) patterns, but will at least look interesting.

Lets face it, probably 80% of RTRs are sold based on pics alone to people who do little or no research. Having interesting tires is going to sell more units than having good tires, and you can make a new "interesting" pattern without paying license fees.

It may not be a good excuse, but it's at least an explanation.


If they have the new, better shocks in the RTR, how are they going to justify charging an extra $100 for the upgraded Factory Team kit version?

The same way they did the old ones. By making preload clip style regular anodized bodies and stainless shafts.

Awesome, more realistic buggies! Strangely, I feel like this one looks better without the body. Maybe they'll have different bodies for it eventually.