Jeep Wrangler Rubicon 1/28th scale
Street Price: $9.99 US
Manufacturer: New Bright
Mfgr's recommended min. age: 4+
Our recommended age range: none
Primary use: Indoors
Radio: 49mhz
Includes:
- Assembled vehicle
- Transmitter
- Antenna tube
- 2 AA batteries for the car
- 2 AA batteries for the transmitter
- Cheverolet Silverado
- 27mhz sets
Initial Impressions
This is a pretty cool-looking little car for the age range it's made for. It has good details that kids will appreciate and the big tires and shiny chrome wheels and accelts stand out nicely, making it look like a blinged out monster truck. It's also a good size for younger kids at about 6" long, and it has a perfect-sized smaller controller, too.
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Preparing to Drive
Usually it's not hard to get a toy RC car running, but I had unusual difficulty getting one of the two batteries into the vehicle. The on/off switch works by actually pushing the battery away from the electrical contacts, and when it's in the off position it's almost impossible to get that battery installed. That's right, you need to turn the vehicle on to get the battery in. Then you turn it off to put the battery cover on and store it or while you put batteries in the controller. Then you go to turn it back on and... ugh. It's hard! The weirds, antiquated switch is actually so difficult to turn that I think a lot of kids will need their parents' help with it. This is not good.
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In the Professor's Lab
(The Professor didn't feel this car was worth his time.)
Testing
I started out trying to drive on a normal carpet surface, and the car really struggled to move, even with the big tires. I moved it to a smooth, hard surface and now it drove around alright, but it was really, really slow to accelerate. It acted like the gearing was all wrong. Top speed was good, but getting to speed was a chore. It was also slow to steer, meaning to turn around you had to keep going forward-left, backward-right, forward-left, backward-right, etc., unless you have a pretty big, open space to drive in.
Conclusion
This car really disappointed me, even as an RC for kids as young as 4 years old. I think it's very fast at top speed, but it would be much better if it was geared for more power and less speed, so it could drive on carpet. The steering is also much too weak. I can't recommend this car or its Chevy Silverado twin to anyone.