I am one of the people who does thing the upgrades should be made available to people that already own the original car.
The fact is that a signigifcant number of people have had issues with the original small pins, even if others haven't. The fact that Durango have chosen to change this spec is an acknowledgement that the original parts aren't quite up to the job. Otherwise they wouldn't have done it. It's also very telling to me that '2.0mm' is now etched on every bone, thus making 2.0mm pins a saleable feature.
Everyone understands that kits progress during production, bu it is gauling for some of the people who have paid BIG bucks for the most expensive 1/10 kit in history (excluding the 511 from some outlets which came later anyway) to have it superceeded by a budget model. It was in fact these original buyers that did the R&D to find the weakness, but they won't see the benefit without shellling out more £££ on upgrades.
Seeing as it's everyone who bought the original kit that has given durango the capital to build their business up (with the 408 and 410R) then it really would be good PR for durango to offer either a 2.0 pin conversion kit at cost price to people who can prove thier kit number.
If it was a new super premium kit that has 2.0, then maybe it's ok, but the fact that it's the cheaper base model little brother is a bit hard to take when you've shelled out the big cash on the real deal that was marketed as the ultimate racing machine.
The argument that it's a precision racing car and so stuff is close the the edge is ok for Formula 1, but very few of the cars out there are driven and maintained by the top 26 in the world. Most of them are raced at club level by enthusiasts who expect their kit to be durable enough to do an entire race day without maintenance.
This is not unprecedented. I bought a new TC last year and even though the team drivers had ok'd it and production had started, alot of mortals found the front spool diff outputs were breaking. The company then upgraded all kits and sent the new outputs FOC to any of the original owners that asked.
Look at recalls on full sized cars. It's only a couple of Toytas that have crashed but they're doing a full recal on every car that might be affected. These are just the facts of selling products.
Bottom line, I think Durango should help out the people that got them off the ground, even if they don't have to.
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