Tamiya TRF pricing

[kidcongo]

Is it just me, or does Tamiya not seem to be keeping up much with their pricing as compared to their product offering? I know they are a premium product, and they are made in Japan, not China, but there seems to be a lot more bang for your buck now with some of the other top contenders. My son recently wanted to get into 4WD buggy, and it would make sense for me to buy a second 502X to match mine, which I know and love, and have all the spare parts for; but when I started comparing prices to X-Ray, Shumacher, and AE, and even Kyosho, I just couldn't pull the trigger on another tamiya. For the cost of buying a 502X and what I think are the requried upgrades, I just can't justify it anymore. For the cost of the tamiya I could get pretty much top of the line from any other manufacturer, and have money left over for batteries and a pile or spare parts and extra tires ect.

I love my Tamiya, I just think they need to consider the modern world and realize that the engineerign and R&D on these older kits is all paid for. They should think about offering a price drop on the 502X IMHO, or start selling it with the upgrades, and maybe big bores etc.

Just a rant.....

[James]

Agreed, love the Tamiya stuff but understandably fewer shops are stocking TRF equipment as fewer and fewer drives are running TRF cars, UK importer isn't interested, no news on new cars. Would like to stay with the gear next year but very unlikely I will if nothing changes.

[DaveG28]

Although I've no idea what margins etc are in the cars, I would just point out I think the trf stuff is batch produced in quite limited quantities. Therefore I am not sure if they ever have kits where r&d has been paid off etc and can go cheap.

Havin said that, the value of the 502 is terrible next to a 201...502 DOESN'T have any of the following from what I remember:

1. Upgrade driveshafts CVD's
2. HL dampers
3. Titanium turnbuckles

Plus to run well I think needs:

1. The steering upgrade
2. The camberlink upgrade

Does it come with a body?

Add those to the kit and the price I would guess is well past Kyosho stage!

It's also true that they could probably do with both a new 4wd (or at least a 511 on steroids) and a new 2wd (longer and preferably mid motor/rear motor combined)!

[qatmix]

The thing when running TRF tourers is that the outlay might be quite high but the parts are cheap, and they dont actually seem to break. At our club there are more Tamiya's than other brands now.

I think one of the guys at our club has spent well over £100 on Xray driveshafts alone.

[kidcongo]

I thought it would be fair to post some comments on AE vs. Tamiya. As I mentioned previously, I just couldn't afford to get my son into a 502X to match mine, so I got him a B44.2 to start racing 4WD buggy at our club. We built the AE kit together and I now understand more clearly what you get for the extra money with the Tamiya kit. The B44.2 design is sound and the car seems to be a great platform, but without any doubt the plastic parts are cheaper, the fit and finish of the aluminum parts is not as nice, and overall the car seems to be a lot more bulky and perhaps overly complicated compared to the 502X. There are certainly very different kits, so all those folks who called the 502X a B44 clone might have been off-base. I agree the A-Arms are near identical, but it pretty much stops there.

So if you can afford the Tamiya, I would argue you get better plastic, all metric screws (thank god! - Why does AE mix standard and metric - how goofy is that?), a more refined and minimalistic design, easier access to the diffs for rebuilds, a lower center of gravity, way better instructions, and generally nicer parts. However, the Tamiya is still very expensive in comparison so I stand by my descision for now. Durability is an unknown at this point as we are just gearing up for the next race season.

Anyways....that Tamiya pricing is not all smoke a mirrors....it is a higher level of quality.

[stegger]

T (take)
A (all)
M (money)
I (in)
Y (your)
A (account)


;-)

[Jamesk]

Originally Posted by stegger

T (take)
A (all)
M (money)
I (in)
Y (your)
A (account)


;-)

Or get a better paying job !!!

I don't think the prices of any product from Japan is cheap right now due the strength of the Yen. Kyosho, Yokomo etc are all suffering right now.

[Origineelreclamebord]

True, but to be fair Tamiya and Kyosho never were particularly cheap from what I recall

Tamiya's products have something some other brands don't. I must admit lately some half-ass re-releases are far off and unimpressive, but for the higher quality products it is really nice. I must say, the TRF201 is not the greatest example of that: It's a very nice car, but a car like the DEX210 has a nicer fit and finish of the parts for example. That said, I think of the Rear motor division of cars, the TRF201 is easily the best looking of them, parts quality is very good on the mechanical front and the Tamiya manuals are just the benchmark to me. As for the 4WDs and onroad cars, yeah... there you can see why they're so expensive: They are that nice!

Though some cheaper cars might be fine mechanically, they are an eyesore compared to the TRFs, the manuals are bad, material feels (and sometimes is) low quality, etc.

[stegger]

Originally Posted by Jamesk

Or get a better paying job !!!

I don't think the prices of any product from Japan is cheap right now due the strength of the Yen. Kyosho, Yokomo etc are all suffering right now.

My job is just fine fella ;-) I was sent this a while ago and thought it was relevant to the thread !!!

[Jamesk]

I do agree the DEX 210 does look a great car and is easy to work on and off all the other 2wd out there I'd choice one. I for now will stick with my 201 as I still enjoy driving and working on it, plus I don't think I have enough talant get the most out of the mid engine stuff. On grass I can keep up with most of the others but struggle on astro more.

JK

[Origineelreclamebord]

Yeah, the 201 works well: I also drive one and with some work on the setup it goes really well.

However, I've found that every mid-motor I gave a test drive just feels like you need to 'work it' less to get it around the track quickly - at least when the grip's there, on low bite I've yet to find out how all that works out

What the 201 (I think thanks to rear motor) does really well is throw the rear end out on tight tracks when you mount the rear shocks to the outside on the shock tower, it makes it so nice to corner around tight corners And I've found it to be extremely quick on wet astroturf!