I just started getting into 1/32 cars and I bought a Carrera set and I have purchased 7 Carrera cars and 5 Scalextric cars and in my opinion Carrera cars are JUNK. I am sorry for the rant but I have had it. Out of the 7 cars (all brand new) only 1 has worked fine. I have had wheels come off,bad contacts with the track,CARS THAT WILL FLIP OVER IN THE DROP OF A HAT,the wires that are connected to the contact brushes broken from the factory,some cars make a grinding sound,another I had to take apart and push the brass axle bushing into the frame slot because it was loose. I will say that they make a nice looking car but I think that I will not buy any more Carrera cars. My Scalextric are near flawless. Perform superb, STAY ON THE TRACK and just a pleasure to run. Sorry again for the rant but I needed to vent. Any advice on what I can do with my Carrera cars(if anything) to keep them on the track. Thanks,Mark PS: I like muscle cars and so on that is why I bought more Carrera cars then Scalextric.

I just started getting into 1/32 cars and I bought a Carrera set and I have purchased 7 Carrera cars and 5 Scalextric cars and in my opinion Carrera cars are JUNK. I am sorry for the rant but I have had it. Out of the 7 cars (all brand new) only 1 has worked fine. I have had wheels come off,bad contacts with the track,CARS THAT WILL FLIP OVER IN THE DROP OF A HAT,the wires that are connected to the contact brushes broken from the factory,some cars make a grinding sound,another I had to take apart and push the brass axle bushing into the frame slot because it was loose. I will say that they make a nice looking car but I think that I will not buy any more Carrera cars. My Scalextric are near flawless. Perform superb, STAY ON THE TRACK and just a pleasure to run. Sorry again for the rant but I needed to vent. Any advice on what I can do with my Carrera cars(if anything) to keep them on the track. Thanks,Mark PS: I like muscle cars and so on that is why I bought more Carrera cars then Scalextric.

Hey beachbomb!

I know exactly what you mean bro. The Carrera's and even the Auto Arts make some AWESOME detailed cars that are almost like the originals. I snagged a maroon '67 Corvette because it reminded me of my split window '63 I had and that thing is nothing more than a shelf queen. They are really nice to look at but have horrible quality. About the best thing you can do is when you buy them, take them completely apart and reassemble them glueing down the bushings, the axles to the wheels and reseating the wires for the brushes and just looking for any other flaws. Needless to say their mechanical quality lacks the external quality they have in the cars.

Scalextrics, Slot.It's, and Ninco's have about the best quality, with Slot.It at the top of that list. Take a look through Slot.It's cars next time you are in the market and give them a try - I think you will not find a better quality mechanically and otherwise from a slot car.

Sorry to hear about the frustration, but yeah, Carreras are pretty, but not that great on the mechanical driving end.

PD2:thumbsup:

I Say Rant Away...............It seems to be the only way to get manufacturers to understand they are being assessed..............They either Improve or eventually die a slow and agonizing death.

Ive had excellent luck with my Scalextric cars so far. I am running digital and while a bit more on the cost end, they sure run sweet and you gotta love being able to run 6 cars on a 2 lane track :)

I havent tried any other cars although I will be picking up some SLOT IT cars in the future now that there is a digital module for these to run on the scaley digital sport track.

One nice thing about the online auctions is this..............If you dont like some of the choices you have made, you can recoup some of your money and chock up the loss to education.............then Move forward and never look back.

Cmon over to the Scaley sport world.........go digital and see what youve been missing . We'd love to have you :thumbsup:

Funny, I have always had good luck with both Carrera & Scaley cars?!?!?!?

Which cars do you have?

Are they the new style chassis (2 magnets) or the old style chassis (single magnet)?

Hey Greg, :wave: good to see ya out and about..............Have you had that saleen out on the track lately?? :cool:

Did you notice we had a new guy pop in to Digital Scale Racing? He came over from the DCC RR Group.
He's a DCC Decoder manufacturer's rep I think. ( I wonder if he is from LOK sound).........we'll see what he has to say :thumbsup:

OK sorry, didnt mean to hijack your thread beachbomb.

One thing i noticed about Carrerra is they are big into old American Muscle cars.............And they got a pretty dang nice C6 corvette (sure wish scaley did):)

Funny, I have always had good luck with both Carrera & Scaley cars?!?!?!?

Which cars do you have?

Are they the new style chassis (2 magnets) or the old style chassis (single magnet)?

ee_prof,

For me, it has been the new style chassis 2 magnet setups. May be the same for beachbomb - not sure.

PD2:thumbsup:

Hey Todd,
It is nice to see your track pictures in the other thread! Looks good! :thumbsup:

As to the Carrera cars:
We run the Carrera cars when we race each week. We mostly run them against each other. Here is a picture of some of the vintage NASCARs I run:
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e278/ee_prof/Testing_1383.jpg
I race the #79 Roadrunner the most. It does have Scaley sillies on it, but otherwise it is stock. Basically we true the rear (ocasionally the fronts too) & adjust the magnets. I usually move the front magnet to the highest position & lower the rear as much as I can for the track. We run on plastic track, so I haven't set 1 up, non-mag, for wood. They are big cars & handle as such (like the 1:1 versions). The Superbirds (#7 in my picture) are very top heavy & don't handle well compared to the other cars.
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e278/ee_prof/LawnGuy2.jpg
This car is also Carrera powered:
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e278/ee_prof/CurrentProjects_1227.jpg
Now there are some freak Carrera cars. My friend Rick has a 007 Mustang that he converted into a TA car. It flies, & will keep up with Scaley TA cars! The new Vette is also nice! It will keep up with Scaley TA cars too, however it took a little work to get mine to handle?!?!? It is the yellow 1 in this picture:
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e278/ee_prof/Testing_1381.jpg
Not sure if this has helped any?!?!?!? If you have any questions feel free to contact me & I will try to help. Carreras are different, but cna be a lot of fun to race.

BTW, Since Todd asked here is my Saleen (not a Carrera - an Artin) ;)
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e278/ee_prof/TrailerTrashRAcing_1353.jpg
Greg

ee_prof,

We actually run on routed, wood, 4 lane tracks at our raceway. No magnets, true the rears and the fronts, traction compound allowed, but only lighter fluid or tigers milk - no wintergreen - weight can be added to balance the car, but has limits on either max or minimum depending on the car we are racing. The American Iron class on Saturday is a box stock class for beginners, but most have to work on the Carreras if they want little to no issues when using them. We have actually had the shop send box orders back to Carrera because they have taken Carreras out of the box, brand new, and there were parts just floating around in the jewel case! Has it happened to others? Sure - but for whatever reason, Carreras are usually the most prone for us. GREAT looking cars, but they just seem to lack some QA or something.

Nice pics! Thanks for sharing!

PD2:thumbsup:

Hi,
One thing I missed in my previous post is to shim the guide. Normally I use the end of an electrical ring connector to push the guide farther down into the slot.

Wow, have received any with parts floating around in the box yet when new.

My Vette did need some work to run right though. Others had said they run good out of the box, but mine was junk?!?!?!? Had to true all 4 tires, shim the guide, & adjust the rear magnet to make it a runner.

I am not familiar with running on wood, but would guess you would need to add a lot of weight low to offset the top heaviness of these cars. Am I close?
Greg

I am not familiar with running on wood, but would guess you would need to add a lot of weight low to offset the top heaviness of these cars. Am I close?
Greg

That's about right.....usually 1/16 lead sheet pieces along the bottom of the chassis, strategically placed. Definitely nothing high or even off the chassis deck. The great balancing act! LOL!

PD2:thumbsup:

I think you have a good start. You are having similar experiences that my friends and I had when starting out.

The Carrera track is excellent! The Scalextric cars are good to start with and will help you teach others how to drive. After others have learned how to race the Carrera cars will see a lot of use.

But we have NEVER had any problems with any of the Carrera cars! I have about 35 of them. I have had a lot more problems with Scalextric cars than with Carrera cars but Scalextric has recently ( the last three to four years) really improved their quality and I feel they are about equal quality right now.

If you purchase any car and there are parts that are not attached I suggest returning these products for a full refund. I have not seen or heard of this with any Carrera cars until this post.

When we race we only race one brand of slot car at a time. We do not race Carrera versus anything other than another Carrera car. I just haven't had any success equalizing the performance of the differnt brands when they are raced on the track at the same time. We race our cars right out of the box as received. Some might need the tires trued or sanded a bit but otherwise it's adjust the braid and we start racing.

The Carrera Plymouth Road Runner and Superbirds, Dodge Charger and Daytona and the Ford Torinos are the cars that we have been using the most recently. These cars have the chassis that has a traction magent just in front of the rear axle and a second magent that slides back and forth so that the traction can be adjusted. There are cars that are faster but we like to race these cars the best. They need to driven a bit differently than cars with exessively strong traction magnets but thats the fun of it.

The Carrera cars do need a long straight, at least eight feet long. Our saying is "the turns are the hard part" and the fun part for us is racing side by side down a long straight and trying to out brake the other guys. The Carrera cars are so evenly matched that we seem to run side by side lap after lap. The Scalextric cars don't seem to be so evenly matched and aren't as much.

Hello,

I run Carrera, Scalextric, Fly,Revell,MRRC and Slot It and like all of them. I run on wood with silicones and a Carrera track with rubber tires, I true the tires on all cars and use flowable silicone for windows to "glue" the bushings and motor in because it can be removed if necessary. I have had only two problems with the 31 Carrera cars that I have..a Jaguar D-Type with a wheel which was drilled off center and a Ferrari 512 with a rear bushing which needed to be shaved and re-seated.The Fly cars had two problems out of four cars which were one rear wheel on both of the Ford Capri's flying off within minutes of running(no pun intended) The Slot it had a front wheel which was off center
the (6) MRRC's, (21) Scalextric and the (11) Revell's had no problems at all except for the usual tuning up. A very experienced racer I met always loosens the body screws on all his cars, he say's that it helps prevent tip over and helps with stabitily, with regards to contact to the track push the brushes toward the front of the car to widen them and curl the end downward a bit. On wood the Scalextric cars are faster and eaiser to handle but on a Carrera track with a magnet the Carrera Jaguar D-Type is very hard to beat, Slot it seems to be the fastest on wood so far and I am talking about box stock cars with only tire truing and silicone. I hope this helps..good luck.

Thanks for the info. I did the screw trick and it works. My Carrerra cars really stay on the track alot bettter. I can run faster and have less rollovers. Thanks again for the tips. Mark