yellost Posted August 8, 2007 Posted August 8, 2007 Hi, I thought I'd do a review of an old set : 8475 RC Race Buggy. In fact, I fell upon it completely by chance not long after reading KimT's review of the Outdoor Challenger, and I was considering buying that one when I read that it wasn't actually compatible with standard LEGO... And then I found this littel baby on eBay for barely a third of the reatil price, so I jumped on the occasion. The great thing about it being that the motors and everything can be put to use on anything LEGO (providing there's enough room to put the RC unit, though...) First, the box : It's HUGE, and quite unnnecessarily so, but I guess that's my ecological upbringing cringing at the waste of material... I suppose, since it's a toy, the bigger the box, the happier the kid who recieves it... But still... As you can see, the box could have been cut in half and still contain enough room to store everything... And I'M running out of room to store all those giant boxes... There's also pic of the second model on the bottom of the box, a small F1 type car. The manual : It was clear enough to follow. And it had some funny features, like a comic on the first two pages. That comic was rather weird, actually, because it tells a story about a race between this buggy and another green car which if I remember well has only a 'pull-back' motor. But it's the green car that wins the race! Because the driver of the buggy is two scared to jump over a cleft or something... I'd have thought that TLC would rather want to confort people qho got his in telling them � YES, YOU GOT YOUR HAND ON THE BEST CAR THERE IS! �, instead of saying some kind of � boo, you'll lose! � lol Anyway... The build was clear enough. It was done in two part, the first being the main body of the motors and wheels, to calibrate the thing correctly so that it goes straight, and then the second part consists of putting on the chassis and all the elements to make the car look good. There were some nice little details in it, like the brake disks on the back wheels... They're not actually used, of course (hey, there're no brake to speak of :-P ) but it still nice. The main feature of this set is of course the RC parts. The RC unit has two connectors, one red, the main one, and a secondary grey one, and has the basic shape of the back of an F1 car. This set comes with two motors. The grey little circle where we can put an axle controls the steering. It turns one way or the other with the analog stick on the remote. The second part is the steering mechanism. it connects to the main unit by a small 2 studs long axle between the two. The nice thing here, is that there's a connector on both end of the piece, so if you have more than one, you can put them in a row... To make a 6-wheel car with four of them steering... Finally, there's the remote control. The two trigger on the back controls the feed of the secondary connector on the main unit (the grey one), which is not used here. While the analog sticks controls the main one (the red one).on the red one, the more you push the stick, the faster it goes. The grey one isn't analog. It's just on/off, one way for the right trigger and the other way for the left one... The only missing thing about the manual, is something that actually tells you that. Since the grey connector isn't used, I didn't quite know what the triggers were for or how you used the secondary connector... I had to do a bit of testing to find out on my own... Finally, some pics of the finished monster. It was really fun to build and as always, with RC car, it's always a pleasure to drive it around (all the more so here because of the LEGO part of it :-P). BUT, it's a real pain to pull apart. After I built the main model, I tried to do the other one, and pulling away all those technic pins literally wore my fingers to the bone... I was all bloodied after that... And the other model is just plain boring... There's nothing on it, really, just the main unit, the two motors and the steering mechanism... and a few pieces to hold it togther obviously, but still... It really wasn't worth the effort... and the injuries. Lol here are the pieces needed to buid the other model. All in all, I think it's a great set, and if it isn't as fast as the Outdoor Challenger, the fact that it's compatible with Standard LEGO makes way more than up for it... Now I'm gonna have to find one more to try and make a 4wheel drive... And those four steering wheels I've just thought of earlier... Overall : 8/10 (I'd have put a 9 if that box wasn't so uselessly big :-P) Quote
Asuka Posted August 8, 2007 Posted August 8, 2007 After I built the main model, I tried to do the other one, and pulling away all those technic pins literally wore my fingers to the bone... I was all bloodied after that... Thank you for that very good review of an interesting RC car. *y* Perhaps you would enjoy a little help with your injuries.... X-D Quote
EyesOnly Posted August 8, 2007 Posted August 8, 2007 I own the sister to this the street racer (to lasy to check the name). Those motors are really powerful but noisy if you try to gear them down for use in anything that needs to spin slower. Quote
yellost Posted August 8, 2007 Author Posted August 8, 2007 I sure could enjoy THAT company :-D I may even try to rebuild that other model once or twice a day... :-P but considering the style of the picture, I don't think she looks the same nowadays... Just a thought... :-P I own the sister to this the street racer (to lasy to check the name). Those motors are really powerful but noisy if you try to gear them down for use in anything that needs to spin slower. Well, I haven't tried to adapt them on anything yet, but I'm thinking about motorizing my 8848 model (It's that huge black technic car)... Quote
EyesOnly Posted August 8, 2007 Posted August 8, 2007 Erhm i think you mean 8880 not 8848. X-D As far as the motors is concerned (and this has prolly been mentioned before) WTF was TLG thinking using them in the 8421 mobile crane. The motor from creators would have been a better choise. Or a standard mini motor. Quote
Siegfried Posted August 8, 2007 Posted August 8, 2007 Nice review. I really wanted one of the RC sets but I have decided to give up on that dream now and buy the IR Bulldozer instead. I think that would give me more options.... Quote
yellost Posted August 9, 2007 Author Posted August 9, 2007 Erhm i think you mean 8880 not 8848. X-D er, sorry about that... I have that stupid tendency of mixing that number with Mt Everst's Height, I don't really know why, seeing that theydon't have much to do whith each other... :-D Quote
EyesOnly Posted August 9, 2007 Posted August 9, 2007 Nice review. I really wanted one of the RC sets but I have decided to give up on that dream now and buy the IR Bulldozer instead. I think that would give me more options.... Good choice. As i said i have the other one and they can't be rebuilt to anything much different than a car due to the bulky receiver and they only have 3 outputs which is way to little for advanced models. I like the motors though, or should i say did since there's something better out there. X-D September has never seemed so far away. ;-) Quote
Siegfried Posted August 10, 2007 Posted August 10, 2007 September has never seemed so far away. ;-) I couldn't agree more! Quote
chorlton Posted October 3, 2013 Posted October 3, 2013 Apologies for the massive bump, but I just picked up a second-hand lot which included 8475 and 4589 and have some additional info that I thought might be interesting. The green car in the comic is the 4589 RC Nitro Flash which is Infrared RC (not pullback). It actually comes with the same comic, where of course it is the winner. Quote
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