Getting back into RC, When did everything become RTR?

[LosiXXkid]

So I've started to get back into RC with rebuilding my RC10 Black Stealth CE and decided to look at what's available at my local hobby shops. It seems that everything is RTR/prebuilt now a days. One of my favorite parts of RC was building the car up and getting to know everything about it so if I drove it hard and broke something, I knew exactly what to replace and how. When did everything start becoming prebuilt and why?

When? I have no idea but I'm sure it started out as a way for manufacturer's to capture peoples attention and sell their RTR product over the self assembly kits of the competition.

Sadly, these days almost everyone appears to be addicted to the fix of 'instant gratification'.

[CamplinP]

I think I am the total opposite of instant gratification, though I am instantly gratified by the instructions and parts bags. I love opening up a kit and going crazy at all the parts. For me, some of the driving of them gets old and I want a new kit to build.

[klavy69]

I believe it was when a manufacturer would set up at a hobby expo type show and see people get all excited about seeing a car run and then walk away when they found out it would take them a couple of days to get it up and running. Sadly, a couple of days is far past the attention span for most and then they are on to the next thing that excites them. For those that seen this and capitalized on it the others would watch that 'guy' open it up and be ripping in the parking lot get even more guys interest and send them their way. Cha-ching! rtr takes precedence over the kits. My first nitro truck was a RTR rc10gt which was being thrashed at the LHS before the ink was dry on the check so I can be partial to blame...

Todd

[LosiXXkid]

My first nitro truck was a RTR rc10gt which was being thrashed at the LHS before the ink was dry on the check so I can be partial to blame...

Todd

You bad boy!
...but I'm probably just as guilty.

[Squirrel40]

I am taking a break from the R/C airplane hobby, it has become the same way. Everything can be bought ready to fly and the people buying them have no idea how anything works.

My first R/C car was a Tyco Bandit that was RTR back in the 80's. I took that thing apart atleast 20 times just to see how everything worked. It was fun trying to get to go faster. RTR is fun and gets you out playing faster but building stuff is just as fun as running it for me.

[R/Cat]

It's amazing how the times have changed. Like many of us, I've been in the hobby since the 80's and only discovered RTR kits by accident when I first saw them advertised followed by seeing them in my LHS. When my parents purchased my Hornet and LB in the 80's, they paid the extra $40 to have them built by the hobby shop (the only RTR option in the 80's for most of us) because the hobby was completely new to us and my father and I had no clue how to build one. However, that's as close as I ever got to "RTR." Had my father been a little more mechanically inclined perhaps he should've tried to build it with me so I could learn for myself but no fault to him. Fortunately, I had that in me and took it upon myself to learn with every car after that I built from NIB which was and remains half the fun.

As some have said, I agree that it's pathetic and embarrassing to see and hear some of the questions and requests by some new enthusiasts in LHS today. While I initially thought modern RTR's were a good thing because they bring more people into the hobby, that merely increases the quantity of people with r/c cars. It doesn't maintain the quality of enthusiasts like most of us who can tear down, fix, modify and rebuild anything in our collections with no problem because we learned how to do it decades ago. The new generation is indeed too lazy, too spoiled and pathologically obsessed with the newest technological gadgets to have the patience, will and/or ability to sit down for few hours and build a hobby-grade r/c car. Therefore, if/when they get interested enough to get their parents to splurge on a RTR r/c car, they have no idea how it works or how to fix the simplest things not to mention will probably throw it in the corner never to be touched again as soon as it breaks, they get bored or the next fad comes along.

[RCveteran]

I like to buy RTR, take it pieces immediatley, throw them all in a box, shake themy all up, then reassemble with no manual blindfolded like a real RC man!

[Kyoshojoe]

Like building a kit takes very much skill. I mean it's simple screws and fasteners .You all make it sound like building a kit makes you a better person with godly skills. Nothing wrong with buying rtr. I bought a rustler 5 years ago and it is one of my favorite rcs. Honestly unless you are fully custom building your rigs with custom fabbed parts, then you are only using very rudimentary assembly skills. Just remember not everyone is a mechanic. And not everyone is a musician, But that doesn't mean you shouldn't be allowed to drive or listen to music. Honestly next time you go into a hobby shop , look at the rtr's and be thankfull how they have saved the lhs and ask the owner why he panders to the average majority and not the eletist. I'm sure everyone here makes their own butter in a churn and bakes their own bread and would never eat fast food or cook a TV dinner. These rants are always the same. What has the world come to. Blah blah blah. These threads sound like a bunch of crotchety old men bagging the youth they are so jealous of and trying to make themselves feel superior in their average life.

[GoMachV]

Buying rtr sucks. Sorry Joe but it takes the hobby out of the hobby and turns it into just another toy. There is no feeling of accomplishment in pinning down a pre printed body and loading the AA batteries. Building the kit teaches you what does what and how to repair it. That's what a hobby is imo, and I'm not alone! That's why we speak up about it. While rtr saved some areas of the hobby, it also chases others of us out of the hobby. Same way Radio Shack has evolved into a store that doesn't even sell a radio

[RCveteran]

These threads sound like a bunch of crotchety old men bagging the youth they are so jealous of and trying to make themselves feel superior in their average life.

Get off my lawn!

[Kyoshojoe]

What is a hobby and why does it have to require assembly? Maybe some people want to experience remote controlling a hobby grade scale car and not have to put it together from parts. Does that mean they are idiots and lazy. I mean really that kind of thinking is what has killed the hobby side of rc. I mean really who is the true hobbyist. The guy who uses a bandsaw, drillpress, and file to make his parts or the guy with a computer controlled router and access to a machine shop? It's all about perspective and accepting the fact that the world changes. I would not have gotten back into the hobby had I not been able to get a rtr rustler. Plain and simple I did not have the money nor was I familiar with what was available. My knowledge of rc was pretty much a 1980 ultima. I wanted an rc car but had no clue what was what, so I went to the hobby shop with 250$ budget. BTW I was familiar with the hobby shop from buying rocket parts. Some balsa and tissue rubber band airplane models, and classic Revell car models. I was drawn to the stadium truck immediately. I asked tons of questions trying to catch up my knowledge of what would be the best option and make me the happiest.so after 20+ years since owning my last rc I bought a rustler for just under 300. Ready to run. Half hour later I bought a 40$ fast charger and ran that puppy till the tires we're bald .

The rustler provided me with an affordable option that essentially helped ease me back into the hobby gracefully and stress free. I have since restored a sold more than a few vintage kyoshos. I have built a couple of fully fabbed rcs and could list on and on all the things I have made by hand from furniture to garden trellises so I think I can speak to the fact that lazy has nothing to do with buying rtr.

Honestly the real skill involved in building a kit is patience. Like getting to the part in the build where the instructions tell you to put the o-rings in the cartridge and you spend a half hour very frustrated looking for bag a , that some Chinese assembler forgot to pack. Spend another half hour on the phone with customer service. In the end you end up going to ebay and buy them there because the company has them backordered. You move on to another part of the build and can't find out why the driveshafts binds when you put the axle together exactly like the manual states. After putting it together and taking it apart several times. You hit the Internet and find out in the forums it's a bad batch of axles. You try and get the correctly machined ones or you can drill out the diff. So you shelve an incomplete kit and go run your rustler and blow off some steam.

So I guess I'm just a progressive old man who accepts the world he created and is thankful that the biggest profit my hobby shop has is on parts to fix rtr vehicles. You see in my eyes it is the hobby grade rtr that teaches children that something can be fixed and even upgraded rather than thrown out like the phone their parents buy them every two years or shoes or toys or even full size cars. The list goes on.

[Coelacanth]

I'm one of the guys whose opinion is that building a kit is no big whoop. We built these as teenagers, it's not rocket science. Of course, it wasn't for everyone; I built cars for my brother, cousin and buddy, not to mention several for customers at the hobby store where I worked...but I think anybody who could commit some time and attention to reading an instruction manual carefully could build an RC kit car.

Building an RC car does more than just teach you how to work with screwdrivers and nuts & bolts, though...it teaches you how the various components and sub-assemblies of REAL cars work; the steering, suspension, basic electronics, etc. Building RC cars taught me how to adjust various components, and showed me the effects of those adjustments. One might vaguely understand how steering works (turn the transmitter wheel left, the wheels turn left) or how suspension works (push down on the car and the shocks & springs compress), but it doesn't teach him/her HOW or WHY they work; and as already mentioned, how to troubleshoot, diagnose and fix a problem with one of those components.

I also agree with others that RTRs contribute to our modern day need for immediate self-gratification. The internet has made everything instantly accessible and we want the same thing with our "hobbies" these days.

[terry.sc]

Working for an online r/c retailer that deals with the general public rather than hobbyists I come across some unbelievable customers. Our most popular individual model is a kit version of a nitro buggy, but that's down to having a limited number of kits available and RTR models sell considerably more overall.

It does say something about the general public and r/c cars, they build a kit incorrectly, complain it doesn't work and return it expecting a full refund. When you point out that they can't get a full refund because the kit is built, and that the reason it doesn't work is because of the way they have put it together rather than a manufacturing fault, their first reaction more often is to attempt a card chargeback rather than admit they haven't a clue.

We had a RTR 1/5th buggy returned due to a 'manufacturing fault'. The customer supposedly knew what he was doing as he has had several r/c cars. He took the 1/5th scale to a car park, wiggled the steering as a radio check, put fuel in and pulled the pull start for the first time with it set down on the ground. As they hadn't checked if the throttle servo was working, and it turns out the servo plug had been loosened in transit, it headed off across the car park at speed only stopping when it hit a bench on the other side of the car park. Broken bumper, front suspension and a bent chassis. The fact that they were too stupid to start it first time with the wheels off the ground was irrelevant,

Then a ARTR jet aircraft was returned as 'faulty' because the servo control rods didn't go through any of the holes in the tiny 9g servo horns, and weren't happy when we suggested several ways to make the holes bigger. They had bought a ducted fan jet as their first foray into r/c aircraft.

Then we had a customer complaining because he couldn't start his RTR nitro truck after trying to get it going for 3 hours. It turns out buying a glow start when you buy your first nitro model is pretty useful.

I had to deal with one of the best today. I booked in an RTR truck, the reason they returned it for a full refund is that it is faulty. The reason it is faulty is that there was no way to turn off the nitro engine. Reading the included manual or searching online would have helped, but no, they had to leave the engine running until it ran out of fuel as that it didn't have a way to switch it off.

These are modern customers, while we would think that if you started a new hobby there would be a period of learning and working things out, for most customers today used to modern gadgets they expect things to either work or be easy to learn enough to get going.

[alien3t]

WHen t-maxx came out.
I turn on the transmitter and started the motor. but the servos are not working.
Sir did you put the batteries in the receiver pack to power the servos
Batteries. this is a gas car. they dont take batteries!

[Superev1l]

I was in a my local hobby shop a while back and a guy was buying a Traxxas brushless sct rtr that was pretty expensive. I asked what other cars he had and he said " I don't own any,this is for my son I think he will like it". I told him "you better get used to the inside of this place" when he asked why I told him he was buying a very fast truck for a first timer and it will get broken daily. Nothing wrong with that but it just made me feel lucky to be really into the hobby and build from scratch side. The shop owner even gave me the "don't ruin my sale look" haha