I dont know if things have changed, but years ago I had a Tamiya Hornet, and then Tamiya bought out the "Quickshot" (IIRC) range, which looked exactly the same as the mainstream cars, but were all electronic surface mount tech, so if the thing broke, you were stuffed.
So avoid those ones if you want to get into RC a bit more hands on.....
I remember the fun of swapping the engine to a 540 motor in my Hornet, and then finding the servos were sticking... me screaming at my car to stop (with my hands off the controller) as it shot up the drive towards the main road.....
Well, I can say that when I was about 13 my father helped me buy my own RC car (he was a big RC plane buff, and now flies RC helicopters almost daily fwiw) and I enjoyed every last moment of it. Mum even liked it, too, as I used to dig up her garden every winter and make a race track for it. It meant she didn't have to turn over the soil herself so was win/win ;) It was a tamiya grasshopper if I remember rightly and was electric. Running times were long enough 5-15min depending on the battery state.
I built it and fixed it and upgraded it over several years and it still worked about 7 years later although teenage boys can be rough with their gear so it might have lasted longer...
I have incredibly fond memories of that time and hope my son will ask to do something similar with me.
I've since had others, including nitro cars (xray brand) (helis, boats, and trucks) and to be honest found more enjoyment out of building them and modifying them to suit than the nitro vs electric argument. Electric is much easier to get into, especially early on. My attention span wasn't very long so about 10min of racing was enough before getting sidetracked while the battery charged and I could go back to it.
I think they're a fantastic toy and even if it doesn't get used after a while, the albeit limited skills developed when building and driving it around could be useful.
I had a water cooled RC electric jet-boat. Faster than any car or heli i've owned and they are harder to damage in my experience. You just have to swim a little bit to retrieve it if there is a malfunction in the middle of a run, haha. I had a fast charger with 11.6v LiPo batteries. They lasted about 30 minutes each and I had three of them which cycled on a mobile charger when they ran low. They are about $80.00 each, so worth the extra fun time.
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