I have owned over 50 RCs and currently have 16. I am an auto mechanic on the side and have restored and rebuilt countless motorcycles, cars, dirtbikes, etc. I have had nearly every 2WD short course truck, Slash, Blitz, Team Durango, Kyosho SC6, Arrma Fury, etc. This is currently the best brushed SCT out there right now. Full metal gear transmission with sealed and tunable gear diff, metal CVD axles with the pin captured by the bearing instead of a grub screw, large diameter rear hub bearings, 550 sized brushed motor that flys on Lipo and is at least as fast as the Slash Titan 12T, a jumpered (easy to change settings) ESC that actually has brakes (unlike Arrma and Traxxas brushed ESCs,) alloy motor plate that aids cooling and allows the motor to breathe unlike the Traxxas plastic "hot box," smooth shocks, decent sized a-arms, metal pivot balls, very rigid chassis, rubber-sealed bearings throughout, tight steering with a nice bellcrank setup, mudflaps, stiff but durable shock towers with adjustment options, waterproof-but-exposed receiver that allows for quick and easy transponder installation for spec-racing, front castor blocks that won't break all the time, the list goes on. The bottom battery door is neither good or bad to me, just different. It is nice not to have to remove the battery but it might get gritty in time. At least it is well recessed so it will not see as much abuse or dirt.

The only drawback I can see so far is that the servo arm setup that Losi uses has an extra "adapter" for some odd reason and it allows an extra bit of slop in the steering that could be fixed with a new servo arm. Servo is slightly slow but this is a $190 RTR so that is to be expected.

Everything was tight and properly set up when it arrived. Just plop in your own battery, break in the brushed motor properly, and you will be a happy camper with this SCT especially for the price.

This might be the best truck in its class. The quality of the unit is very evident. It can take quite bit bashing without any problems. It also happens to be fast, a lot faster than I would have guessed. I was genuinely impressed. If you want an SCT, check this one out. You won't be disappointed.

Out of the box, this really is a great truck for someone getting started in the hobby. With a 2s Lipo, it's fairly zippy, handles well and the suspension is well matched for the stock motor.

The ONLY knock I have against this truck "out of the box" is that the wheels are absolute garbage (knocked off one star for quality due to this). The day I bought it, I drove it on my local indoor clay track (set up as a clay oval that day) and broke the center out of a wheel within an hour. (No jumps, just got t-boned by someone). A week later (track now set up as a clay short-course circuit), I broke the center out of another wheel after contacting the track bumpers.

The stock tires are decent "all-terrain" tires, but each time I broke a wheel, I replaced them with a pair of Pro-Line "blockade" tires. When the first one broke, I put the new wheel/tire set on the front, left the stock tires on the rear. This made the truck "loose" on clay and asphalt, and pretty well balanced on looser surfaces. Blockades on all 4 corners handles quite nicely as long as you remember to brake into the corners to "set" the front end, otherwise it'll push like a dump truck.

Things to anticipate upgrading repairing:

1. Wheels - as mentioned, the wheels are garbage, but the tires are OK for bashing.
2. Shocks - the stock setup is OK. Jumps land nicely, but body roll is pretty excessive. Adjustability is with spacers, rather than a threaded ring. If you update the power plant, a better pair of shocks and some stiffer springs are a must. I mounted a set of Chinese aluminum shocks (90x12mm front, 100x12mm rear) mated with a pair of white Traxxas springs and 25wt oil in the front and 30wt oil in the rear. All available pretty cheaply.
3. Front A-arms are a bit of a weak point. I've broken the right-front twice (stuff breaks when you crash sometimes...), but a full replacement set is ~$11.00 so not a big deal.
4. Powerplant - the stock motor is great for getting started. It's fairly peppy ... top speed is maybe 20-25 mph. It comes with a 14t pinion installed which is fairly tame, and an 18t pinion that gives a bit more top-end. I upgraded to a Chinese 4300kv/60A ESC combo (BL3650 4300KV - google it ... lots of different names, same motor). With the provided 18t pinion, calculated top speed is ~33mph. This is pretty nice, and lots of punch off the line, and wheelies are possible with a fresh battery on pavement (a well-timed bump in the road while getting started will help get the nose up). With a 20t pinion the beast is unleashed, with a while still providing good run time and no overheating issues on 2s LiPo.

I have HEARD that many of the upgraded components from the 22sct will fit this truck, but resources are pretty thin on exactly WHAT fits and what doesn't.

Bottom line: for

I've been racing R/C cars for more than 20 years, and now that my son is 6 I thought I'd get him started with something he could bash around and eventually upgrade to race. I found this and thought it was a perfect beginner truck.

The first 5 minutes were fun, he was able to race it around and everything was great. Good speed and power, easy to drive. But suddenly after pulling on the throttle, the engine started going into a strange slow mode, as if the car got dialed down.

After about 15 attempts at soldering wires, replacing connectors, swapping out batteries, the problem persisted and even got worse to the point where after full throttle the truck would just stop having any throttle input.

Horizon mailed us a new ESC free of charge, which didn't help.

We had to mail all the electronics into Horizon (at our own expense) because of this and after a couple weeks they mailed us all new electronics aside from an ESC which they forgot.

Today I plugged everything back in and the problem is still there, with all new electronics and as I was inspecting the steering mechanism and replacing the servo, the bearing in the linkage fell apart.

Now my 6 year old doesn't have a truck (it never really worked), and the RC is sitting on a shelf partially disassembled.