Kraton Kraton 6s - too much maintenance - 1/8th scale breaks too easily - should I have went 1/10th - did I make a mistake?

[Moirae]

lol I read the suggested maint in the manaul and promptly never looked at it again after the first day. Just fix it when it breaks and try to land on your wheels. If you aren't even jumping, you're not going to break anything or need to do much unless you enjoy crashing into everything. =D

 

[SentFlying]

lol I read the suggested maint in the manaul and promptly never looked at it again after the first day. Just fix it when it breaks and try to land on your wheels. If you aren't even jumping, you're not going to break anything or need to do much unless you enjoy crashing into everything. =D

 

[J.Rambo]

If you don't want to do maintenance on your rc and just wanna bash, You can pay the premium to have someone else wrench on your ride .. I think my LHS offers those service at $50/hr plus materials.. Too rich for my blood!!

 

[Mr.Duke]

Maintenance is an aspect of every part of your life. From vehicles and tools, to your marriage/girlfriend all the way to the relationship you have with your kids or employees and coworkers….. If you don’t take the necessary time to maintain each of these things, sometimes on a daily basis, you’re sure to watch them degrade and wither away to nothing given enough time.
This hobby is no different.
- whatever gets thrown at you, best to tackle it head on in a timely manner or face the consequences.

 

[KnowAir]

lol I read the suggested maint in the manaul and promptly never looked at it again after the first day. Just fix it when it breaks and try to land on your wheels. If you aren't even jumping, you're not going to break anything or need to do much unless you enjoy crashing into everything. =D

I concur! Pay a little more, worry alot less
I should say, I have quite a few extra rigs around, so that helps

 

[Senton_Prime]

Maintenance is an aspect of every part of your life. From vehicles and tools, to your marriage/girlfriend all the way to the relationship you have with your kids or employees and coworkers….. If you don’t take the necessary time to maintain each of these things, sometimes on a daily basis, you’re sure to watch them degrade and wither away to nothing given enough time.
This hobby is no different.
- whatever gets thrown at you, best to tackle it head on in a timely manner or face the consequences.

Couldn't of been better put.. Quote that sh**t duke!!

 

[JPWSRC]

You really have to approach the hobby the same way that you would with 1:1 automotive performance. If you want the performance of a Ferrari, you have to cough up the money to maintain that Ferrari, and it will need it often if you're pedal to the floor every time you drive. If you want the cheap and easy low-maintenance bliss of a Ford Focus, than you have to live with the blandness of its performance. But as others have said, there is no RC that is maintenance free, and the way you drive has huge impacts on how much maintenance you are going to do. If you're launching something off of jumps going 50mph+, it's going to break sooner rather than later, if you're just driving around on short grass or pavement and not constantly wrecking, you'll [probably] get by a while without needing to do much.

Focus RS owner here! Not low Maintenance... if you play hard. Which essentially proves the point, if you play hard, you'll work hard (->> maintenance wise.)Lol

 

[MAVERICK@2]

I have found for someone just getting a feel for a new rig or new to the hobby take a 6S rig and run it on 4S. Get a feel for it understand it’s capabilities and yours. There is so much more control with a smaller battery pack. Also so much less of a betting on the new rig / less maintenance then step up to 6S when your ready

Hell I still haven’t ran my new infraction on 6S yet and it’s still a blast

Ease into the hobby don’t jump in with your hair on fire. Good luck and have fun

 

[🇺🇸 DΞזΞפּ 🇺🇸]

I love it especially the wrenching, tweaking, mods, try out new things including Maint. at first I was intimidated by the shear Technology that is behind all this, but I tent to overthink things and make it more complex than it is or has to be.
the results after speak for themselves.

 

[LiamG]

Maintenance is an aspect of every part of your life. From vehicles and tools, to your marriage/girlfriend all the way to the relationship you have with your kids or employees and coworkers….. If you don’t take the necessary time to maintain each of these things, sometimes on a daily basis, you’re sure to watch them degrade and wither away to nothing given enough time.
This hobby is no different.
- whatever gets thrown at you, best to tackle it head on in a timely manner or face the consequences.

Hahaha this is the most profound reply to a question I’ve ever read on here.

 

[N.Mango]

I'm not in any way joking or messing with you.
I would truly consider a Tamiya Black Foot or the like.
You can put an aftermarket motor for a little more speed, and upgrade shocks and other little things.
From there it would be hard to break that thing even if you tried.
You wont have the beastly fun as the Kraton but you also wont have the same maint. imo

 

[N.Mango]

I'm basically new to RC for all intents and purposes. I had an Associated RC10T as a teenager but that was 25 year ago. I did my research and was prepared to spend $1,000 give or take with batteries and a charger to get a high qualify hobby grade RC monster truck and get back into the hobby. I decided on the Kraton 6S V5 RTR, and just purchased it along with a charger and 4 6s Lipo's. I know some would say this is too much for a newb.

The truck does have awesome performance, no doubt. But it seems like the price I'm going to pay for that is a lot of repairs and maintenance which I'm not looking forward to.

As I've continued to read I'm realizing I likely I should have done more research. At this stage in life I don't have the time or inclination to put a ton of time and money into wrenching on the truck. I know some folks find that part of the hobby fun and enjoyable but not me. I'd prefer to spend most of my time driving with minimal time spent repairing and performing maintenance.

The more I read the more it sounds like heavier 1/8th scale RC's don't hold up as well with hard landings, cartwheels and crashes. Sounds like their lighter 1/10th scale cousins can take the abuse a lot better. Is this true? I don't want to always have down time, waiting on parts in the mail, ending up dumping endless $$$ into the truck with upgraded parts every time I break a stock part, etc.

As far as maintenance it seems like the Kraton is high maintenance. I don't look forward to changing the oil the diffs every 20 packs or so - is that really necessary? Is it true that I should expect to be constantly changing out bearings too on a regular basis?

I'm trying to ascertain if the forums paint a real world picture of a typical Kraton 6S owner. Obviously the people here are probably bashing the hardest and want their trucks performing at their absolute best probably, more so than folks that don't visit the forums. So is what I see on here more of the ideal maintenance patterns? in other words if I slack on the maintenance can I still have the truck performing at let's say 80% - 90% of its potential - I'd be fine with that.

As far as repairs if someone's truck isn't broken they're not going to post about repairs so maybe all the posts I see about breaking parts isn't really indicative of how much I should expect to break parts. Maybe for every one post i see about someone smashing up their truck they're are 20 other people who have been running for long stretches of time without breaking things.

For the most part I want to drive fast on big grass open fields and a little bit of pavement here and there. I have no immediate plans to jump my truck but once I get bored of flat surfaces I may buy a conservative jump to have some more fun with the vehicle.

In short, am I in over my head for what I'm looking to do?

I don't want to start a Traxxas vs. Aarma war but if I'm fine with 1/10th scale, want a low maintenance truck that's built like a tank out of the box and still want to go fast. should I have went with something like the Traxxas maxx? Or maybe and an Aarma BRCC?

Hate to sell the Kraton 6s and 6s batteries at a loss after just buying it but I am considering doing that.

Looking forward to the feedback.

I have a K6 and I put an over powered system in it. I will admit that I'm sure some on here know, that I baby my Kraton....all my RC's for that matter.
My preferred running is just as you stated...I run on grass, pavement, light dirt/gravel but have never sent it to the moon.
With that said, maint. is still a big part of keeping it running as it should. I personally believe that hardcore bashing fixing and maint. has been merged into one. Yes anything can break at anytime not just by hitting 50ft. in the air and landing nose first but the chances are greater with hardcore bashing.
Grass seems to be safer in obvious ways, but don't let it fool you. I stripped brand new Mojave wheels because of the traction they have on grass is just unreal! Tall grass can wreak havoc on your electronics as they have to work harder to drive the tires over the grass.

Anyway, I'm a K6 owner and for someone who babys his rig I still break stuff and still have to do the regular maint. The difference it seems is that I like to wrench on my RC's.
I hope you don't throw in the towel with the Kraton...its as you know fun AF!
Good luck with it

 

[mfish]

Wow! I really appreciate everyone's passionate responses and different perspectives. It does sound like its like anything else where you have to pay to play. And the harder I play likely the more I'll have to pay in time and/or money to keep playing. I don't mind some tinkering and maintenance but I just have a threshold of how many hours and dollars I'm willing to put into the hobby.

You've all inspired me to keep the Kraton. I'm not going to send it to the moon but will still have fun with it. I'll be prepared that inevitably thinks will break and maintenance will have to be done periodically. Thank you all!

 

[LolrSk8r]

There is no low maintenance RC out there, it’s just not possible. Your best bet is to go with a Traxxas X-Maxx.

Traxxas ... SMH

 

[King blitz]

I'm basically new to RC for all intents and purposes. I had an Associated RC10T as a teenager but that was 25 year ago. I did my research and was prepared to spend $1,000 give or take with batteries and a charger to get a high qualify hobby grade RC monster truck and get back into the hobby. I decided on the Kraton 6S V5 RTR, and just purchased it along with a charger and 4 6s Lipo's. I know some would say this is too much for a newb.

The truck does have awesome performance, no doubt. But it seems like the price I'm going to pay for that is a lot of repairs and maintenance which I'm not looking forward to.

As I've continued to read I'm realizing I likely I should have done more research. At this stage in life I don't have the time or inclination to put a ton of time and money into wrenching on the truck. I know some folks find that part of the hobby fun and enjoyable but not me. I'd prefer to spend most of my time driving with minimal time spent repairing and performing maintenance.

The more I read the more it sounds like heavier 1/8th scale RC's don't hold up as well with hard landings, cartwheels and crashes. Sounds like their lighter 1/10th scale cousins can take the abuse a lot better. Is this true? I don't want to always have down time, waiting on parts in the mail, ending up dumping endless $$$ into the truck with upgraded parts every time I break a stock part, etc.

As far as maintenance it seems like the Kraton is high maintenance. I don't look forward to changing the oil the diffs every 20 packs or so - is that really necessary? Is it true that I should expect to be constantly changing out bearings too on a regular basis?

I'm trying to ascertain if the forums paint a real world picture of a typical Kraton 6S owner. Obviously the people here are probably bashing the hardest and want their trucks performing at their absolute best probably, more so than folks that don't visit the forums. So is what I see on here more of the ideal maintenance patterns? in other words if I slack on the maintenance can I still have the truck performing at let's say 80% - 90% of its potential - I'd be fine with that.

As far as repairs if someone's truck isn't broken they're not going to post about repairs so maybe all the posts I see about breaking parts isn't really indicative of how much I should expect to break parts. Maybe for every one post i see about someone smashing up their truck they're are 20 other people who have been running for long stretches of time without breaking things.

For the most part I want to drive fast on big grass open fields and a little bit of pavement here and there. I have no immediate plans to jump my truck but once I get bored of flat surfaces I may buy a conservative jump to have some more fun with the vehicle.

In short, am I in over my head for what I'm looking to do?

I don't want to start a Traxxas vs. Aarma war but if I'm fine with 1/10th scale, want a low maintenance truck that's built like a tank out of the box and still want to go fast. should I have went with something like the Traxxas maxx? Or maybe and an Aarma BRCC?

Hate to sell the Kraton 6s and 6s batteries at a loss after just buying it but I am considering doing that.

Looking forward to the feedback.

Your driving style has a lot To do with it .the kraton is a tough truck .it takes a lot for things to break compared to other brands.Arrma is known for its durability.ive has my kraton for a little over a year and no breaks ,no issues.then again I'll also don't send it 100 ft in to the sky.don't be so hard on it and you'll be fine ..all brands break .and wrenching is part of the hobby.good luck

 

[NitroK]

I can suggest a zero or close to zero maintenance rc. 1/16 HBX 16889a pro. Over 300 jumps, mostly bad ones onto asphalt and its still going.

 

[GraniteFox]

Agree with many of the posts. This hobby is about 70% running and about 30% maintenance & wrenching depending how you run them. For most, including myself, the wrenching part is also very enjoyable. Might I say even therapeutic. If you hate the maintenance part this may not be the hobby for you. For me I like to fix and maintain everything I can......cars......small engine stuff.......appliances......rc's. There is a great satisfaction in taking something broken and bringing it back to life or improving the performance. Arrma does a very good job designing with maintenance in mind. Many of the other brands do not. Winter is a great time to tear down and do maintenance. Then you should be good for the entire season barring breakage events. At the end of the day it's a hobby.......it should be enjoyable and enhance your life. Good luck!

 

[razorrc]

This thread is 2 years old and the OP isn’t around anymore.

 

[Saladshooter]

This thread is 2 years old and the OP isn’t around anymore.

Lots of resurrected threads surfacing lately..... they are still fun reads and helpful to newcomers, but not much use dispensing advice to the author.

 

[GraniteFox]

This thread is 2 years old and the OP isn’t around anymore.

Haha