Ive admired r/c stuff for many years. Watched many races on and off road. I finaly decided in want to get one. So as not to outlay a huge sum of money i thought i would start out with the losi mini t, TA rc18, or the duratrax vendetta. I was going to buy a kit but i think i would be better off with a rtr for now. That way i can learn how they go together when i have to fix it.

My local hobby store does not really want to answer my questions because there is always a swarm of nitro guys. Im in a rural area so i dont have many shops around. Going to another shop is not a real option. Ill probaly be buying my car through mail order. Is this a good place to start? Are they simple (in amateur terms) to work on? I dont want the exspense of a 1/10 yet. I want to go nitro myself but i figured i would get my feet wet with this just to see if ill stick around.

It will be hard finding someone to run with in my area but i hope i can. Thanks for any help in advance.

First off you have the right idea going electric prior to nitro to start your r/c career off.RTR is probably your best bet to get going.

What K-5 said is right. Electric is the place to start and grow. It will teach you important things like chassis set-up. You can have the most high dollar rig on the planet , but if you dont know how to set it up and maintain it, it will do you no good.I personally would go with the vendetta for many reasons. 1) it is race worthy right out of the box. 2) it has a sealed drive train where the 18t, b, r have exposed gears that are a pain to keep debris out of. 3) the mini-t is very upgradeable ,but the out of the box version is VERY toyish. There are no oil shocks so its bouncy unless you spend more $$$ on oil shocks.4) I would actually go with the Vendetta ST because the truck version has larger tires and a more bashable stance and ride height, so it will handle varied terrains better. 5) the vedetta series has gear differentials instead of ball differentials wich can be tricky to rebuild for newcomers. 6) the vendetta is faster out of the box than a mini-t or an rc18T,b,r , so you will be content with the top speed for a while before you need to spend more $$ to upgrade the motor. 7) for on road racing or bashing it uses touring car size drive hexes so you can bolt on any set of touring car street tires without having to spend more $$ for drive adapters to make them fit.8) duratrax has a free replacement stress tech guarantee on the plastic peices so if they break you send them in and get new ones for free. 9) the vendetta uses standard size steering servo's so it wont cost an arm and a leg to replace it if it does break(around 9.00) 10) the radio system is made by futaba(one of the top radio manufacturers for YEARS) so you know it's reliable. 11) it's 100% complete. It even includes AA size batteries for the radio.

^^^All the reasons you said is the reasons i like the vendetta. In the bigger stuff i just always noticed more T/A and Losi stuff. I am a guy who loves to customize. I like all the aluminum parts i see for the trucks. I notice there is no where near the same amount of stuff for the vendetta. Is there someplace else i should look for hop ups beside ebay? Like i said my local hobby shop turned me off to how they handle new folks into the hobby.

I know im not ready to drop 5-600 bucks on a nitro setup yet, but just from the couple of times i was in there, and they ignored me because i was spending under 200. Like i said i love to modify things so i gurantee they missed out on alot of upgrade purchases and a new nitro buggy/or truck within a years time. Thanks for the help.

Any more input? Is the vendetta just as customizable as the Mini t or associated rc18t?

yes . the vendetta already comes with alloy shock towers and front brace. just go to tower hobbies and punch vendetta into the search engine for a full listing of parts that tower offers. other companies such as atomic, and 3 racing make more hop-ups for them also. But really after you drive one youll see that they really dont need too much done to them to drive and handle better than a mini-t or a rc 18. I have owned all 3 an also a mini-inferno ST. After I ran the vendetta ST for a week or 2 I put the rest of them on e-bay!.But if you reaaly like to modify things go with a mini-inferno. there are so many aftermarket parts out there that you can build one without even using ANY stock peices.the one I built ended up having 1 stock peice on it, the front bumper!

for starters get an electric. duratrax has good cars bvut the arent reliable. all the stuff i have rdered from them was missing parts or broken. the rc 18 mt is a good off road and on road car. and yes the rc mt or the rc 18b is just as costomizable. just make sure they work with your setup.

I Like the RC18MT myself, but they do have their faults.

420 youre in jackson huh? I think we should try dragging a box stock pair sometime ;) how is the turning radius of your detta' compared to my MT?

The newer 370 motors in the RTR T/A stuff seem to be quite a bit faster than they used to be, I picked up another one for my wife about 8 months ago, and the damn thing runs circles around one i have with a mod motor! :freak:

Mebbe she just got lucky :woohoo:

Jim

:woohoo: :wave: the super 370 motors are nice but be careful they burn out quickly if used alot and they an easily wreck your ESC.