Bought a Brand New Rovan 5B and it sucks

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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

Best comment of 2018 so far. Peace man!
 
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.

Not for me? But chose to quote my reply?

Of the 4 rigs I have running and the 3 under construction, only 2 were purchased as complete rigs; an HPI Baja 5T purchased 8 or so years ago and a Kraken Vekta.5 2 weeks ago. The rest were and are being built from scratch. I have no experience with a complete clone rig. I have used cloned parts from purchasing bulk lots of parts from people either getting out of the hobby or just making room. Most of my first hand experience comes from the Baja platform as the Vekta is still new to me.

For the newbie looking to get into this hobby, if you tend to easily get frustrated and angry over small things and/or have a low self esteem, find another hobby. If you expect this or any rig to indestructible regardless what you do, find another hobby.

Now if you have common sense and have the attitude that everything will eventually break. Name brand parts will fail too. All parts are at the mercy of whom has the transmitter. Here is a short list of name brand failures I’ve had:
HPI throttle servo, frozen at full throttle at around 4th or 5th tank.
The wrist pin clip decided it didn’t want to be next to the wrist pin on the stock 26cc CY engine. I think this happened after a few months after I got it. I only caught this because I had to replace the head gasket.
Various plastic bearing mounts fail, such as for the clutch bell and layshaft at spur gear plate. Front and rear hubs tend to wear out causing excessive play.
Shock shaft ends and control arms eventually break.
Keep in mind this is from just a few months of owning a name brand rig, HPI Baja 5t. I’ve used clone parts to keep me going until aftermarket parts arrive. I’ve also had RPM control arms break. I’ve had Hostile MXT tires develop cracks and eventually shred into pieces.

As far as clone engines go, I got one from a bulk lot purchase. It is a weird looking one with the clutch housing molded into the crank case housing. Being that it was an extra engine, I wanted to test it’s limits. I chucked the cylinder on a lathe and removed enough material to get my 0.015 inch of squish. The cylinder was honed and new gasket installed. At that time I was also racing sport bikes so naturally I had some leaded racing fuel and mixed a batch. With the high compression and being a 2 bolt head, it ate up a couple of pull starts and blew out a couple of paper head gaskets. I ended up pulling the engine while I waited for a copper gasket to come in. It’s been years since, I still have not replaced the gasket. Once I’m done with these projects, it will be revived again and placed in a sweep the floor build.

If I was given a choice of what to buy next knowing I would throw on a bunch of aftermarket parts at it, it would be a clone roller. I’ve actually started collecting parts for an X2. So far I have the 3 diffs with aluminum housings, Losi cage and body panels.

Bottom line, in this hobby or any hobby things will eventually fail, regardless if it’s from a big name brand or clone. Just have fun. To this day I still can’t see who is having more fun, the one with the name brand stuff or the one with the clone.
 
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