Hot Racing = Hot Mess

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Rowdie

Fairly New Member
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Location
Florida
Arrma RC's
  1. Nero
Purchased Hot Racing drive shafts for Nero.

Attempting to place a warranty claim. Turns out they don't care enough to even respond. While attempting to contact them I've noticed this is not a rare occurrence but is evidently just how they do business.

And now you know.
 
I have heard nothing but bad things about their axles. They are kind of like Integy, although some of their products are actually very good, some of them are pure crap.
 
UGH sorry to hear about your axles. Like you said Hot Racing does has some very nice upgrades and some parts are more "bling". Shoot a list out to the forum on parts that your displeased with so others have a heads up. Not to bring up traxxas but the slash 4x4 owners replace all the drive axles cause they are crap. Just to bad you have to go threw this B.S from a company that makes nice parts.You would think they would have awesome customer support and trying to get their name out more to the masses !!!!! Always rubber side down. Dave
 
The only parts I've purchased is one set of axels for the nero.

I noticed they responded to my fb message today. I hate fb. Guess I'll venture back and see if I can't get some service.

I have to agree the parts... look the part. They're really nice looking and certainly seem plenty robust. The issue I had is the threads inside the part that goes through the hub. Where you put the lil allen screw to secure the pin. Those threads were screwed up and never let the screw get to the pin.
 
Wow been using hr for many years. No issues whatsoever. I will stay away from their axles...
 
I've owned
  • Aluminum hard anodized aluminum shock bodies for the MERV
  • Aluminum steering bellcrank for the MERV
  • Aluminum front and rear body posts for the MERV
  • Caster and Steering blocks for the 1/10 Ecx Ruckus 2wd
  • Super Duty 85T steel spur gear for the 1/10 Ecx Ruckus 2wd
The MERV shock bodies everyone who is anyone that owns a MERV knows about those as they are they best shock bodies available for the MERV.
The steering bellcrank when combined with bearings in the servo saver works very well. The stock one is know to break a lot.
The body posts I did more as a bling kind of thing, they held up to my abuse very well.
The caster and steering blocks for the Ruckus are a well needed upgrade from the stock ones, however they share a flaw with the stock ones, they use the factory screws to hold the steering block to the caster block and those screws need to be about 1-2mm longer, the stock plastic steering blocks the screws rip out of them all the time. The screws only thread into about 2mm of material. With the aluminum ones you must make sure that you use enough thread lock and that the screws are as tight as possible or you will rip the threads out of the steering block.
That spur gear as taken the lives of many a motor pinion.
Just my experiences so far.

The thing that I find very odd is that with how many parts they make there are like zero reviews for so many of them. Some things you find the random forum post with someone asking about them but there is not much info posted in many of them.
 
Let me be clear. The fact the part has and issue is not the real problem. The problem is the response to the issue.
 
Hello all, just wanted to put my two cents worth in about Hot Racing parts, don't have any on my Kraton, nor will it ever have any Hot Racing parts on it for the fact that I have purchase hot racing axles for my ECX torment only to find out they were not made long enough for it, nothing but problems, and after emailing Hot Racing 2 times about the issue still no response after 2 months. They may make some good parts but their customer service = no response.
 
You know I've heard nothing but good things about there diffs but this...this is keeping me away from HR.
 
Just wanted to share as well. I have the Hot Racing CVDs as well for my Nero build and some other HR parts. The stock Arrma shaft setup is much better IMO and also had a bad experience with customer service through them. Like others said, some parts work out great but the drive shaft are a no go, expensive, and make your rig more susceptible to breaking IMO. I'm actually seeing if I can rework these thing to work like they should or maybe stretch my Nero and use two of them as the center drives as they should perform much better if they didn't have to slide in and out. I was just so used to upgraded CVDs right away from owning all Traxxas over the years (slash, EREVO, Summit, etc.) I automatically bought the four drives and rebuild kits to have on hand. My second run on them the shaft siezed, made the truck go violently cartwheeling in the air, broke a tooth on my pinion and the landing broke my steering linkage. Awesome upgrade, worst part is when I took it all apart to see what happened and fix it with my well planned out rebuild kit purchased ahead of time, the parts that broke were not what cane in the kit. The issue I had was the pin had lodged and snapped on the shaft, made the trim band go deformed, (those I could replace from the kit) but the shaft itself had worn the hole open first in an oblong shape so now the shaft is no good. Customer service offered no help, warranty, etc. Other than suggesting I purchase the rebuild kit they sell to get the CVD back up and running...what! I own four, the part I need isn't in there. Looked at the other three shafts and they are all setup the same way and will have the same problem over time so big waste of what I though was an upgrade. Put my stock shafts back in got really strong spring metal rods and ends since I had to fix the steering linkage and swapped my pinion gear out. But no help from HR so they got the last of my money even though I must have spent like $2Gs over the years on their stuff for various RCs. I understand the weakest link their that things in this hobby can't be "bulletproof" but i think their are some unspoken rules:
-they need to last for a certain minimum number of runs to not agrivate customers. People have different expectations but one or two runs is not exceptable unless you really crash or are a total full throttle all the time newb.
-an upgrade performance part needs to outperform the stock part. I get that if you are buying an aftermarker chrome bumper that doesn't have any revelavance to hitting a tree and driving away, more than likely the plain black one would do better. I'm talking parts for performance. Something is for the drive or says hardened, etc. It needs to be better than stock.
-everything can break, got it. You can have a thousand forum members love an item that seems indestructible and one guy (or gal) lands the wrong way and breaks the part, it happens. With HR, parts are pricey so you expect some of what is in the price is customer service and that's what matters when things do break. Telling you to buy the repair at home kit you already own is crap! You didn't care and didn't listen. Now most won't care but your job is to at least pretend you do and provide a good experience in this one bad case so I continue to be a loyal customer. Case in point, I have plenty of tools of various manufacturers, some are very pricey but gaurunteed for life. I paid the prices I did, not because either don't think I'll ever snap the sidewall of a metal socket, cause I will and have, but because I know that it will be replaced, no questions asked because the companies name is stamped on it. So I continue to but from those groups and in the long run my tools have paid off over buying and replacing several sets of cheap tools that would break much easier and damage the parts I'm working on.

Again just an example but somehow these companies have lost that old school mentality that they are in business because if customers. Companies like Traxxas that can't take a little competition and purchased up all the patents for things they never invented so they can dominate the market and force hobbies to spend a grand on some cheap plastic parts that break again and again. Now I get profits and everything else but maybe companies need to focus a little more on quality products, a strong reputation and excellent customer service and they won't need tricks, gimmicks and screwing the little guy to prosper.

Sorry for the rant but this got me fired up.. lol
 
Hey guys a just an update for you on the Hot Racing drive shafts. My opinion of the slider shafts hasn't changed, however since I basically was stuck with them, I rebuilt them into extended center drive shafts by removing the wheel hub and swapping it with the out drive piece. I then stretched a Big Rock Frame to the max length this allowed which is longer than the current stock drive shaft as center stretch technique you may have seen. Basically it works like a charm and since they don't need to slide in and out like they did as wheel drive shaft, I have no issues.

As for the actual driveshafts, I gave HR another chance and bought the heavy duty splined drives for all four corners. All I can say is WOW! Such better quality and design. Well design is basically Arrmas stock design so ya it works. But the improvment over even the Big Rock HD version is that the black tubes are thicker, the pivots are thicker, and there are no plastic collars needed to attach to the diffs. It's a metal cup right over the out drive and a heavy duty steel screw pin. No more blowing the pins apart like before or drive shaft issues.

70 a pair isn't cheap but I highly recommend the HT splined shafts and would not recommend the HR slider shafts as the stock Nero are better and the stock Big Rock are way better.
 
H
Hey guys a just an update for you on the Hot Racing drive shafts. My opinion of the slider shafts hasn't changed, however since I basically was stuck with them, I rebuilt them into extended center drive shafts by removing the wheel hub and swapping it with the out drive piece. I then stretched a Big Rock Frame to the max length this allowed which is longer than the current stock drive shaft as center stretch technique you may have seen. Basically it works like a charm and since they don't need to slide in and out like they did as wheel drive shaft, I have no issues.

As for the actual driveshafts, I gave HR another chance and bought the heavy duty splined drives for all four corners. All I can say is WOW! Such better quality and design. Well design is basically Arrmas stock design so ya it works. But the improvment over even the Big Rock HD version is that the black tubes are thicker, the pivots are thicker, and there are no plastic collars needed to attach to the diffs. It's a metal cup right over the out drive and a heavy duty steel screw pin. No more blowing the pins apart like before or drive shaft issues.

70 a pair isn't cheap but I highly recommend the HT splined shafts and would not recommend the HR slider shafts as the stock Nero are better and the stock Big Rock are way better.

Hi, was looking for reviews and feedback on HR splined CVD for the bigrock and i saw yours. Just wondering how do these CVDs performed, after running them since Feb? Any feedback is much appreciated.
 
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