King Motor/ Rovan Baja review.

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TRX1994

Active Member
Messages
29
Location
Illinois
Hello, I want to post my review of my rovan baja 5t to inform those looking to get one rather than the hpi.

I bought my Rovan Baja 5t on ebay for around $530 sometime in June 2012. First, I did have problems starting the 29cc engine but after contacting the seller, he gave me some tips and it started easily. On my first break in run, I crashed into steel trash bin(somewhere on youtube if you would like to laugh) and the front of the 5t body shattered because it was a brittle lexan. I continued to drive the truck because I had never controlled a 30 pound radio control beast and it was too much fun to stop for a cracked body. A few months later, I accidentaly overcharged the battery and it exploded but that was entirely my fault so b careful. My next complaint is the quality of the drive cups. I broke 2 of them. However, the design of the cups are taken from the actual hpi and it is a bad design. The clutch shoes and springs are also very low quality so be careful of that. Recently, I took it to a bmx track and broke one of the front lower a arms after jumping a rather large jump, then I broke the other side hitting a curb. The plastic structural pieces seem to be very weak so I replace the a arms with rpm or kraken only.

Now that the cons are out of the way, on to the pros.
The seller i recieved this from was very helpful and gave me a free battery and pre filters. The trucks performance is incredible compared to anything I have driven(my first 1/5 scale btw) and every time I drive it, I smile like a child. The quality of the chassis seems to be bulletproof unlike some of the plastics. The tire tread has also worn very little after fishtailing it on gravel a bunch. The engines sound with the ss exhaust draws lots of attentions from my neighbors and I love it.

So overall, I have spent somewhere around $100-150 on replacement parts and supplies for my truck and I would say the quality is at par or above a stock hpi baja now. In total the truck has cost me between $630 and $680 which is about half the price of an hpi. And I LOVE IT!

I hope this review is informative and may sway those on a budget as I was when I purchased mine.
 
you forgot to mention the horrible quality of some of the aluminum parts on it. i can take the front upper deck on mine and bend it with my hands, and I don't even need try hard, and mine came with the "heavy duty" one. the Tr one i order i cant bend.

Frame seems fine though, I hit a curb going pretty good and its fine, it mushed/bent the stock aluminum front lower control arm brace, i put a hpi one on there, just cause they are available localy

as far as the plastics on them, stock hpi ones suck too, so km is on par with hpi (i worked at a hobby store and people were always buying plastic baja parts, they were hard to keep in stock)

stock hpi clutches suck as well, so they are once again on par with hpi, I once saw on last like 45 min and it was DEAD

that all being said I love my Km baja, its a blast to drive and so far ive had no issues, I took it through the mud a few days ago and damn that thing is fun, I need to get my 1/8 buggy going, and have my buddy bust out his S-Maxx (2wd tmaxx), Im thinking about building a rc track so that we can have some fun on it, i have 4 acres of land that would be perfect
 
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+1 on the orange aluminum parts. The rear shock tower aluminum brace on mine bent a little but was easily bent back. So far, all the plastics accept the front a arms have been excellent.
 
I wasn't impressed with the control arms, i went through 3 lowers (km included 2 extra, plus the original i broke) and I ordered some rpm arms,
I haven't broke one of those yet. i wouldn't say i hit anything abnormally hard when they broke, one that broke was during a doughnut, i bumped the front tire against the curb, and it went snap and broke.

maybe i got some bad Km control arms, i ran into a bad batch of rpm control arms a few years ago on my tmaxx, they were more brittle than stock and I broke probably 8 of them in like a month, after the 8 crappy ones and some very angry phone calls and emails i finally got a good set and they lasted me damn near a whole year. I actually sold it before i broke another
 
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