mini car drives quite quickly

(prHWY.com) December 10, 2012 - New York, WA -- Actual review dictated by one of my kids: "It's very cool because it is controled by a mini steering wheel instead of by levers. The mini car drives quite quickly and is very fun to play with. The RC Cars is also quite durable. I know this because I've dropped it many times and it has yet to get scratch on it. It's a lot of fun to play with and I've wasted a few hours playing with it a couple days ago. "

I gave this a few stars for educational value because indeed, you steer it with a little wheel, so it helps you begin to learn to drive a real car!

I had some hopes for this, that it would be a decent small Radio Control Car to use around the house. I have many helis, planes, and high end R/C cars, and my 9 year old loves them, but he's not so good with control. So this seemed like something we could use together.

Unboxing is easy, they have screws holding the mounting pieces through the cardboard into the bottom of the car and remote, so they came out easily and quickly. 2 AA's in the car, which is a very easy-open door to the compartment, and the 9v in the remote. On/Off switch on the bottom of the car, no on/off for the remote.

Tested it on the hard floor in the kitchen, and it has a pretty poor turning radius, but it DOES turn fairly well. No tracking issue to one side going straight, but there was an adjustment on the bottom of the Remote Control Cars in case it becomes an issue. Seemed like it might at least be fairly acceptable on the first run on the floor in there. Then I tried in the great room, which has carpeting, short carpeting that you can do legos or puzzles on, so it's not some thick stuff that would be expected to cause major issues. And the car can go forward and backward easily on the carpet, but the turning is just horrendous. Nearly unusable even in my great room since it requires the ENTIRE room to do a 180 and reverse direction.

Randomly, with brand new batteries, we have it stall out- where it won't move forward and back, as if there's a dead spot on the armature inside or something. Little nudge and it starts going again. Doesn't happen often, but the fact that it happens at all with any regularity is a bit of a letdown. But again, it's a small percentage of the time, so doesn't make it unusable at all, just slightly frustrating at times.

The build is solid though, sturdy and is taking the "hits" from the carpet edge transition from the kitchen to the great room without any problems.

For a low price Radio Control Racing Car it's decent, but as with anything, you get what you pay for, so there's some issues you'll have to contend with around the home. But certainly better than some of those really low end starter R/C cars for kids that are out http://www.vdealbox.com.

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