All teams dev parts and I've been happy with the SV. Had no real issues and glad they are still taking the car forward. What with new challengers from Losi etc they'd be fools not to

all this makes me smile.... schumacher are constantly developing their cars to allow the team and club racers to move to the top of their chosen class and for releasing their option parts they get slammed. im sure you would all moan more if these parts wernt made available to the public.

just scrolling down through the various manufactures threads on oople and other forums i see people moan that no development is done, that the latest anounced car is taking a few weeks extra to come out due to a defective part, the manufacturer hasnt released a new car for 4-5 years, why not etc etc etc

ive worked hard the last few months to develop a setup that works in the greasy and dry conditions for a box stock car with minimal bits on it and pretty much have one nailed as the last couple of epr events have shown (will be posted soon). of course im an ok driver which helps but if a car isnt under you you arnt on tq no matter how good you are especially when all the other makes of car are at a meeting. there is always one that is better etc etc. i know these parts arnt cheap by a long shot but as said previously they are option parts. your choice if you buy or run it. i know i dont use every part schuy release as some dont suit me but the first thig i do is ask what the latest thing is going to do to the car and its driving characteristics. take this chassis for instance. when the cougar first came out loads of people said it was to aggressive to drive, the new chassis calms it down, making it safer and easier to do consistant laptimes, mossy already said he needs the more aggressive car, others in the team prefer it long.

personally tho id rather schuy do all this hard work and release these parts as it helps me stay near (ish) the top and the results the team get cant be argued with.

the top boys will always be at the top you can say, but that is not always the case. look at the top 10 in nationals over the last 3 years. people who were winning are now struggling to make top 10 simply because their cars havent kept up with the changing trends yet others who have released the latest trend of their cars, hop ups etc etc are still up in the top 3/5.

Got nothing against schumacher and i agree with the point they are just options not essentials, depends how you want your car to drive...

Having said that i was a little disappointed with my cougar when i had one and ill be sticking to losi stuff :)

I have to agree with Simon to be honest
I love running my cougar and from going from my x6 to the cougar at last years nationals i was running in 2 finals higher than i was previously.

That tells me the car has helped me somewhat already and if theyre improving the car still im quite happy to buy the parts as and when i think i need them.

I run mine standard and dont have a problem in slippery conditions to be honest. Its all about suspension and car setup not all about upgrades

im agree that they should have test the cougar for a longer time, but i have almost every options for the cougar, and i must say that they all makes the car really better and reliable, I'm grateful to schumacher that they spend so many time and work in the car. to make it perform better. up till now all updates i have are really better. I also going to order the new chassis. because that is something that can change the car completly.
the only problem is that I don't wanne know what the car has cost me:).

To be honest, I had a go with a friends Cougar at the weekend. I haven't driven 2wd for about 4 years and in my first run with the car was imediately faster with the cougar (21st in round at worksop) than I was with my 4wd Cat!! It was a standard car and I thought it was awesome!

Regarding the upgrades, teams will never please everyone. As has been mentioned people moan about teams bringing upgrades out and using the public as ginueapigs, and others moan about how long its taking teams to improve cars.

But, you can either spend £70 upgrading a car that you are used to running. Or you can go out and buy a new car for £200+ only to find that its not as good as the car you ran before. I don't think the teams use the public to find stuff out, as not that many actually give the team any feedback, so how can the teams use them as ginueapigs when no feedback is given? The feedback will come from team drivers mainly and will reccomend that things are altered to further increase the cars performace.

schumacher released the car way too early. Look at all the problems they have had. Yes, they do look after you well with aftersales, however it should not happen in the first place.

with regard to the reason why they released this chassis, it was the 'feedback' given back from the average racer of looseness/twitchyness that made them make this new extended chassis. The average racer is what schumacher are aiming the car at, thats who is keeping the company afloat. But the gearbox issues, drive shafts, idler gear.........do I need to keep going on?..........may have dented schumachers reputation enough that herds of racers will no longer buy their product ever again. Just have a look at the amount of cougars for sale!

I raced at moto arena tonight and won. My car had a standard chassis, standard gearbox, standard gears and the competition was pretty tough!! In reality though, it was only one mistake splitting us all. The car in standard trim does work and doesn't 'need' options.

The longer Chassis idea was actually tried in pre-season testing last year before the car was released. However at the time it was felt that the advantage was minimal, if at all. Hence it wasn't pursued. We could have spent another 6 months testing it but then everyone would have complained that the release date kept moving back.

The gearbox issues didn't arise in testing prior to release, and trust me there was a lot of it done. I probably did 3 average seasons worth of testing on my car, and that was in all kinds of conditions.

I'm not saying it's all perfect, because nothing ever is. There were gearbox issues that arose, but I'd like to think they were handled as well as possible. To say there wasn't enough testing done with no insight is just wrong.

Don't waste you time answering fastinandout Tom, he's a professional complainer. I think the car run great, I appreciate all the options and upgrades. I think the only way to make some people happy is to hand them a trophy when they buy a kit.

Tom, your a pro, you can drive anything and I have great respect for you.

as far as you go, I'm entitled to my opinion. I'm not a brand freak, I drive whatever I need to, whatever I feel will be best suited to my needs. I'm not a tool and feel I need to have the same brand 2wd & 4wd knowing that I'm not required to be driving them. I drive what I feel is the best 2wd, & 4wd I think is at the current time, regardless of brand. I'm fortunate enough to have nearly all the competitive cars on the market in my possession, so I know which cars are good out of the box, which cars are a handful, which cars I can recommend to my friends. With regard to manufacturers continuing updating, have a look at the AE B4 or Losi CR. Those cars have been out for so long without a change, well the AE until just recently has been the same for how many years? 5-6 years. Look how many nationals, world championships it's won without a change. If the car is good from the start, it will need nothing to make it better.........................

its very funny the very people who keep defending this car, besides the factory drivers(which I understand), are just plain simple brand freaks who have owned the cat sx for years, and jumped onboard the cougar, and so stubborn not to move onto to another manufacturer.

that's not entirely true, I also had the cat sx but have not ridden them for a long time because it is one of the worst cars i ever had. I am the first one that will admit this. but, with the cougar I'm satisfied, the biggest problem for the most people is that they haven't assembled it good. i think.

Would love to know what set up you were running last night? Care to share in the setups section?

Okey ! i dont want to step on anyones toes here but this is my take on things.
I started my 2wd racing with the ass b4 and its a good car. However i think the wear of the car is to high. Drive it 1 season and you have to replace the whole car.
I have driven my cougar for a season now and sure i had to replace some parts but not anywere near the same amount as i did with the b4.
I think that depending on what kind of driver you are there is a car that will suit you better.
For me it was the cougar because i could drive it hard which works for my advantage.
A friend of mine went back to b4.1 because it worked better for him.

From memory, it's similar to my Worksop setup, but with the rear shocks laid down on the tower and the plastic spacer under the rear camber plate.

I'll post a full setup tonight.

I agree with you totally, I drove the cougar and cat a whole season and only replaced thing sparingly, come to think of it I only replaced things when I thought I needed a upgrade. I'm no factory driver by the way, I pay for my parts and kits. I like the quality of the kits, only Durango are Shumachers rivals in that respect.

Like merlin said everyone should drive what suits them, Schumacher is a fit for me.

By the way do you need to get another body and undertray if you get the new chassi ???

Haha, very good question :D
Waiting for the answer from the pro...

normaly not, you can make the holes bigger and it schould fit.
thats what chris hahlen has told me and he was driving this chassis.

How wrong are you!!
I think the Cougar is an ace car, and I've only driven one once! and have only recently gone to the CAT after a year and a half at Durango, previous to that HPI/HB.

I'm far from being a 'brand freak', so you can't go round assuming this is the case without knowing all the details.:thumbdown:

Get your facts right before posting. ;)

fastinfastout
well I'm team driver but I'll try to say what I really think.
When I got this car I really struggled on our very hard packed track with layer of very loose dust. I wasn't able to compete against others who I've beaten year before with my XXX-CR and X6 (switched car during season). Well it was new car and there was only little knowledge about setting car properly for my conditions that was at first 2 races (got to A final but was somewhere on tail), next 4 races were different story, firstly I got to same level then got even faster - resulted in 4 wins. I wouldn't return to X6 - was damn lazy car compared to Cougar and I didn't like that much. Yes it was a bit more work to make car work as I wanted it, but with help of other team drivers (mostly Nathan Ralls) it was achievable.
To tuning parts - personally I don't have any of mentioned - Alloy gearbox or longer chassis. I think I'll look into chassis as it should help me in my loose conditions but it should be just fine on high grip tracks.

Yes I defend this car because I truly like it and I love my Cat (won all national rounds here). I used to be huge Losi fan 2 years ago and didn't want to switch brand at time. So it's definitely not about me running Schuey cars for time being.