Bought a Brand New Rovan 5B and it sucks

[gasserbob]

Rovan Sucks

The motors suck

Everything seems to suck about Rovan. This has been the song in my head anytime I have ever mentioned Rovan or my new Rovan.

The only Person that has ever said any different is a guy I know who works at a large chain Hobby store here in the Dallas,Texas area.
He actually owns a Rovan and has nothing but good things to say about Rovan. Since owning my Rovan 5B for a little over a month now I have run it nearly every single day, I have that time right now because I am a disabled combat vet who is recovering from back surgery that was a service connected injury that happened during service.
I only tell you this because it validates me as being patriotic. To be Patriotic to such a great County as the United States one knows that with that comes the belief of fair trade and the Free Market "free market - an economic system in which prices are determined by unrestricted competition between privately owned businesses" for consumers and Sellers / manufacturers. I truly appreciate the fact that Rovan has developed a Remote controlled gas powered 1/5th scale buggy that I can afford.
To bad for HPI who ever else may not be selling as much product now. Maybe they should have lowered their cost. IDK Im not too worried about the future of HPI or the past of HPI.

Other than everyone telling me how bad Rovan sucks I do not know what else to do, I am not sure what other test I can put my Rovan threw to see if it will ultimately fail or break.
I guess I will need to back a semi truck over my Rovan or set it on fire or take it to the ranch and shoot at it with a 300 winmag.

Considering the Rovan has logged more miles than my real life vehicle and for that matter the Rovan has logged more mileage than my wifes car and my car put together in the past month.

Only Issue I have encountered is I tend to spill a little bit of fuel each time when pouring fuel into the mixing bottle.
That is probably only because Im a bit shaky and I can fault myself for that but not Rovan by any means.

Go buy a Rovan and read the instructions and see for yourself.View attachment 45670

 

[Jlolley]

Glad you are enjoying your rc car. I have been in it a justlittle longer than and have compiled a list of failure/repair on a couple of name brand vehicles. Mostly due to engine mods. If yours stays on the ground more than the shelf and you like it, then great. Keep running it and have fun. Glad you live where you can run it so much.

 

[Nasim]

1) Thank you for your service.
2) I have the HPI and a buddy of mines has the Rovan. They can equally take a beating.
And there is no 3. Lol. It's awesome that you can get into 5th scale at half the cost of buying the name brand. Great thing about the Rovan is that every aftermarket upgrade part that was made for the HPI Baja will fit the Rovan. Glad you're having a blast with it.

 

[Buzzsaw46]

The only test that matters is the test of time. If you are happy with your rig don't worry about the bad experiences those of us that had them say. I truly wish my experience with Rovan had been as positive as yours has been.

I keep hearing how great the KM clones are also but my buddy had two parts fail on his KM 5ive yesterday, broke the drive pin off a rear dog bone, I gave him a spare so he could keep running and his front diff grenaded.

 

[Thrasher]

You post about this so much that I am starting to ponder who exactly it is you are trying to convince. The picture reveals that you do not drive it particularly hard. My bashers look like they have been run over by a combine harvester within a month.

 

[machine head]

View attachment 45707 Rovan Sucks

The motors suck

Everything seems to suck about Rovan. This has been the song in my head anytime I have ever mentioned Rovan or my new Rovan.

The only Person that has ever said any different is a guy I know who works at a large chain Hobby store here in the Dallas,Texas area.
He actually owns a Rovan and has nothing but good things to say about Rovan. Since owning my Rovan 5B for a little over a month now I have run it nearly every single day, I have that time right now because I am a disabled combat vet who is recovering from back surgery that was a service connected injury that happened during service.
I only tell you this because it validates me as being patriotic. To be Patriotic to such a great County as the United States one knows that with that comes the belief of fair trade and the Free Market "free market - an economic system in which prices are determined by unrestricted competition between privately owned businesses" for consumers and Sellers / manufacturers. I truly appreciate the fact that Rovan has developed a Remote controlled gas powered 1/5th scale buggy that I can afford.
To bad for HPI who ever else may not be selling as much product now. Maybe they should have lowered their cost. IDK Im not too worried about the future of HPI or the past of HPI.

Other than everyone telling me how bad Rovan sucks I do not know what else to do, I am not sure what other test I can put my Rovan threw to see if it will ultimately fail or break.
I guess I will need to back a semi truck over my Rovan or set it on fire or take it to the ranch and shoot at it with a 300 winmag.

Considering the Rovan has logged more miles than my real life vehicle and for that matter the Rovan has logged more mileage than my wifes car and my car put together in the past month.

Only Issue I have encountered is I tend to spill a little bit of fuel each time when pouring fuel into the mixing bottle.
That is probably only because Im a bit shaky and I can fault myself for that but not Rovan by any means.

Go buy a Rovan and read the instructions and see for yourself.View attachment 45670

I agree they do suck. There was a time in my life when I had health issues too. I rebuilt that whole truck and it took my mind off of thing. The only thing left rovan is the chassis, but now I have a badass truck the runs circles around everyone else. You feel better!!!!!

 

[Thrasher]

You cannot lower cost unless you lower something in the production line. Some alloy is fine for cheap camping set cooking pots (and Chinese RC's) and other aluminium can be used for mission critical tools in the aerospace industry. The same goes for plastics. Just because it look alike does not mean that it is alike. I think HPI sold theirs at the price point they could but despite having several very popular designs under their belt it was not a particularly well run company and also suffered from cloning being legal in China..

These two cars are not the same.

One is a Chinese knock off that is sold at 1/3rd the price (and build quality) but you wouldnt know just by looking at them.

It is starting to appear like are trying hard to make people ignore the experiences they have had with clones versus the original and seems to think that just because they look alike and that just because the clone can be driven up and down the street for a long time, they are the same and HPI were just greedy.

Like I have told you before, there is a reason you rarely if ever see clones in ranked races. My mate was last seasons national champion (and high ranked in the European league) in 4wd offroad with a bog standard Losi 5ive-B except for the engine which is replaced by a proper racing engine. I would love to see someone do that with a Rovan or KM and I know they stole the 5ive-B design too, so it would be possible to try.

 

[Jlolley]

thrasher...not all of us race. at what level do you race. it may be high, but not all of us do..

 

[Scruffy]

I cant beleive this years long debate is still going on and frankly get tired of reading it. If you like your clone and have fun running it, GREAT!!! So do I. If you prefer HPI and have the cash to put into buying one, then by all means, buy an HPI. And another thing i don't get is this. If you own an HPI, Rovan, KM, or any other large scale rc, you are probably going to upgrade it anyways. So your car now has an OBR engine, alloy parts, upgraded servos and electrical....so what difference does it make what your car started out as? Point im making is, no matter what brand you originally bought, it is no longer that lol. So buy what you want, upgrade the crap out of it, and run it into the ground like the rest of us. As long as your having fun doing it, WHO CARES!!!!!

 

[one2boost]

Here we go again, "my stuff is holier than thou." I bet your "friend's" rig was not a bone stock fresh out of the box and swept the wins. I'm sure, like most, aftermarket parts were added.

Like I always say, "At the end of the day, the only opinion that matters, is the one that pays the bills." I couldn't care less what people think of me nor the stuff I have. I agree with Scruffy, set up and run your rig the way you want. If you are having fun running your rig, then its a good day. If one is getting frustrated over every little hiccup, its time to find another hobby.

 

[Thrasher]

Jlolley, that is not the point. The point is one of quality that OP seems entirely unwilling to accept. That there is a reason his Rovan is cheaper than the HPI original and it is not because HPI were simply greedy. I have the same attitude as pretty much everyone else here. If you are happy, good for you. It should be all that matters to you.

On hop ups, I get a huge laugh out of that. People go and buy Chinese "hopups" and is all like "whhooooo alloy now my truck is the shissniss" and don't understand that there is a reason that they are so cheap and that alloy isn't just alloy. Some of it is great for cheap cooking pots, thats what they use for everything pretty much because its very very cheap and it will in fact make your vehicle a worse more fragile vehicle even if it looks the bizniz.

There is also pretty expensive European and US made hopups which are usually made from the kind of aluminium that the aerospace industry use for mission critical tools. They are usually bloodsuckingly expensive. The same holds true for plastics which isnt just 'plastics'.

When shits cheap, theres a reason for it. There is a reason that the whole world doesn't think" fiddlesticking great quality at fair prices" when they hear the name China but are more likely to think "cheapass bullcrap". For Chinese companies however there is a universal truth that applies to them the same as everywhere else. If the product doesn't at the very least do what it says on the tin (drive forward, turn etc) they too go out of business pretty quickly.

Amateur level racing is a good benchmark for quality. They do not have the money or sponsors to just build the truck of their dream to drive like a maniac. If something is good and cheap it rumors like wildfire and within a month ,everybody have one. The same applies in the other direction and thats why you don't see a lot of clones among the drivers. Too many potential issues. Many bashers however are happy campers about clones just like many people who get a TV don't care it only lasts for 4-5 years as long as its big and bright. But the fact that you are happy doesn't turn the TV into B&O or your very loud chinese loud speakers into B&W's just because they look the part.

 

[Thrasher]

I bet your "friend's" rig was not a bone stock fresh out of the box and swept the wins. I'm sure, like most, aftermarket parts were added.

Like I already wrote he put in a racing engine, as per the rules and ran the tires outlined by the rules. Neither of which come with the 5ive-b out of the box. Everything else is as Losi's Chinese factory partners made it and he did it mostly to piss off and prove a point to all the tosspots who throw thousands worth of chinese cookingpot upgrades into their cars because they think there is some magic part they are missing since they are not winning and cant figure out why everything breaks on them all the time. AFAIK all he has changed all last season was an engine as one of the racing engines blew up and worn tires. His closest competitor every year runs MCD, also standard but with the changes dictated by the rules.

 

[one2boost]

Like I already wrote he put in a racing engine, as per the rules and ran the tires outlined by the rules. Neither of which come with the 5ive-b out of the box. Everything else is as Losi's Chinese factory partners made it and he did it mostly to piss off and prove a point to all the tosspots who throw thousands worth of chinese cookingpot upgrades into their cars because they think there is some magic part they are missing since they are not winning and cant figure out why everything breaks on them all the time. AFAIK all he has changed all last season was an engine as one of the racing engines blew up and worn tires. His closest competitor every year runs MCD, also standard but with the changes dictated by the rules.

Cool story.

 

[Buzzsaw46]

Here we go again, "my stuff is holier than thou." I bet your "friend's" rig was not a bone stock fresh out of the box and swept the wins. I'm sure, like most, aftermarket parts were added.

Like I always say, "At the end of the day, the only opinion that matters, is the one that pays the bills." I couldn't care less what people think of me nor the stuff I have. I agree with Scruffy, set up and run your rig the way you want. If you are having fun running your rig, then its a good day. If one is getting frustrated over every little hiccup, its time to find another hobby.

My replies are not for you, so much as the new guy that is researching what to get, and wants to know is a KM/Rovan as good as an HPI/Losi. I can not recommend one of the clones with what I have experienced, I know first hand what it has cost me to make my Rovan as reliable as my Losi, and I can tell you with out a doubt my bank account would be in better shape had I bought a second Losi instead of the Rovan. If you bought a clone you have already made your choice and my comments are not an effort to belittle you as warn others of the difficulties I have faced due to my choices.

 

[Jlolley]

Thrasher, I agree totally that you cannot expect superior quality for less money. Didn't mean to single you out, just make the point that people like different flavors of ice cream, that's why they make so many.
I foolishly bought not one, but two highly modified trucks (That's another story). They are new 5ive T and Vekta .5 and I have had a few issues getting them dialed in. They are not like out of the box and I do not have the engine knowledge that most here and the O.P possess.
Good luck to all with their choice whatever that may be. I appreciate all the info on this site.

 

[Thrasher]

Cool story.

Right?! Who would have thought that driving talent is actually the key difference between the people who take the podium and those on stay on the ground. Here's his car for this season, notice the awesome ghetto killswitch solution. Never had a runaway and he has been racing since before ESC's existed. Also apparently Triton offered him free poop and he took it because, free...

 

[Thrasher]

I foolishly bought not one, but two highly modified trucks (That's another story). They are new 5ive T and Vekta .5 and I have had a few issues getting them dialed in..

What is foolish about that. You have two amazing machines. One of the best racing trucks around and a basher that is going to become legendary (it kind of already is). I am still considering getting a Vekta simply because it is a beautiful thing

 

[Jlolley]

I' m very happy with the trucks. It's just been a learning curve getting "race trucks" and being a novice to 1/5 scale. The compression of these motors has blown a couple of the green paper gaskets that are so popular. They need stronger. Replaced with copper and steel blend gaskets. But ugh when it happens. Thrasher you make good points.

 

[Thrasher]

Wow it actually literally blew out. I use one made from plastic and it sometimes melt, so I get them in bulk. I also have a few alloy ones, maybe I should switch over. I think I sound harsher than I actually mean things because English is not my native language. I am sorry if I come off as condescending or mean spirited because thats definately not my intention. Also, thank you.

 

[Paul G]

I cant beleive this years long debate is still going on and frankly get tired of reading it. If you like your clone and have fun running it, GREAT!!! So do I. If you prefer HPI and have the cash to put into buying one, then by all means, buy an HPI. And another thing i don't get is this. If you own an HPI, Rovan, KM, or any other large scale rc, you are probably going to upgrade it anyways. So your car now has an OBR engine, alloy parts, upgraded servos and electrical....so what difference does it make what your car started out as? Point im making is, no matter what brand you originally bought, it is no longer that lol. So buy what you want, upgrade the crap out of it, and run it into the ground like the rest of us. As long as your having fun doing it, WHO CARES!!!!!

Could not agree more!!!!!!!!!!!!