Out of box performance is... not very good. Be prepared to at least buy brass wheels and oil shocks. A couple years ago I had to make a decision, a 1/18 Panda Hobby, or a 1/24 Axial. I ended up choosing the Panda Hobby Tetra X2 based on it having more features for the money and being more scale looking than the then current Axial offerings. Besides the body shell being prone to cracking after an accident on the X2, the Panda has needed nothing, no repairs, no upgrades. Just absolute scale like performance straight out of the box. I ended up buying an X1 and a K1 for my kids, those have needed a couple repairs due to my young children being young children, and added taillights to the K1, but absolute performers are they, and quite robust to be honest. Having been given an Amazon gift card, I wanted a Panda 6x6, but the 1/24 Axial Deadbolt was calling to me. With the darn things being nowhere to be found on Amazon at the moment, I stumbled upon this absolute looker of an SCX24 on sale for $127.99. Figured it would perform, what with all the hype that the Axial’s have gotten over the years, but boy was I wrong. Thing is way too light weight down low, top heavy, and very tippy. Feels very toy like with all of the light-weight plastic components, hollow tires, bouncy shocks, and undersized motor. I was very disappointed. Especially since I bought the thing three days after Traxxas unveiled their 1/18 Bronco and Defender. Which both come with oil shocks and a decent size motor, although larger. If it was the Deadbolt I may have sent it back. Buuuut the darn Bronco is just sooo good looking, I decided to put some wheel weights and oil shocks on it. Which ended up turning into me replacing almost everything under the chassis, as once I get started, I am a fool for vehicle upgrades . Here’s the rundown. #1 Injora brass beadlock wheels @ $29.99 #2 Injora 39mm oil shocks @ $21.99 #3 Injora rock sliders @$14.99 #4 Injora brass steering links @$12.98 #5 Injora brass diff covers @$18.98 #6 Injora brass high clearance links @$21.99 #7 Injora wheels nuts @$10.99 #8 Injora brass skid plate @$14.98 #9 Coda Racing aluminum bumpers @$36.99 Yes, some of that is cosmetic, but my point still stands. I built my own taillights and I ended up reusing the stock tires with some foam I salvaged from an old mattress. But be careful as you remove them from the stock wheels. I accidentally ripped one, but luckily the Bronco has a spare. So, there’s another $12.98 for tires if you want them to perform really well. And an extra $9.99 for taillights, since for some insane reason there are no taillights. Now that it has weight, the steering servo is too weak to turn the wheels all the way if there’s any resistance, so that's on order already. Another $22.99 that absolutely needs to be spent. Surprisingly, the super tiny 030 sized motor, soo tiny, seems to be able to move the weight around... mostly. But it’s honestly probably not long for this world. The Panda’s and Traxxas come with a 180 size motor. Yes, I know they're slightly bigger vehicles. So, another $13.98 to move the extra weight around, and that’s still only a 050 motor. After I replace the steering servo, I believe this thing will perform really well. But at what cost? I could have bought the Panda 6x6 at the same MSRP as this SCX24, and the Panda would crawl circles around this thing without needing an extra dollar spent. I also wouldn’t feel bad about taking the Panda outside to be beat on like a crawler should be treated. So, after I’m done sinking funds into this thing, I’ll have a $424+ 1/24 Axial couch crawler, one that I don’t want to do any actual crawling with just because it’s too gorgeous and expensive. It also feels a bit fragile with all the extra weight and the shock mounts, link mounts, and axles still being plastic. So maybe it still needs some more metal in it, there’s another $100. It now performs, quite well, but at the cost of a full-size crawler. If you want to customize a money pit trophy truck / couch crawler, this is an awesome RC. If you want no hassle performance out of the box, maybe get a Panda 1/18. I think they have also fixed the issues they had at launch with the 1/24 Panda’s, but I’m not totally sure about that. Another thing worth noting, the LED’s are too damn bright, and only one set is switchable. I attempted to use another channel for the bumper lights as the thing comes with a 4 channel radio, to no avail. They programmed the ESC to be able to run blinkers on their own two separate headers, and then a couple extra servos on channel 3 and 4, with the headlights being run by channel 3 as well. But I can’t seem to get the channel 3 or 4 headers to switch my LED’s on and off, but they run the LED's unswitched without issue. Maybe I’m missing something there. So, what I ended up doing was running the headlights, bumper lights, and added taillights to the single headlight header. This header does not provide enough current to run the six LED’s at full power. Looks great, no longer blinding, but no longer bright enough for the headlights to be actually useful. I now love this thing, but it’s a money pit. A gorgeous, and now capable, money pit. Update: Aaaaand now I have aluminum shock mounts to install, and two front aluminum axles with brass steering cups and two Emax servos coming from Injora to make this thing all wheel steer. Hopefully I can hide the receipts from my wife. She's gonna kill me. Will update if not dead.
