Tamiya disappoints me right out of the chute

Last year Nathan got interested in radio control cars, and said interest happened to coincide with a good time for him to get a little surprise. So we went to Toys “R” Us and found a cool silver and black Dodge Magnum that plays music, lights the wheels up with blue LEDs, and has working headlights and brake lights. Pretty neat–and with a fresh set of batteries it’s faster than anything I ever had as a boy. He loves it.

Well, I used to love them too, and had a lot of fun driving his around during naptime and what-not, so I decided I’d get one for myself as well. I didn’t want to spend tons of money, but I wanted something a little more robust than what I’d seen at the toy store. So one day at lunch I went to RC Hobby Barn to look around.

I wasn’t interested in anything serious, like racing or “nitro” cars (did you know you can spend $1,200 on an off-the-shelf RC car?). I just wanted something to drive around the front yard once a month or so. I poked around a bit and decided on the Tamiya Super Manta Ray, #57708. It wasn’t a mega-fast buggy, relatively speaking, but it was definitely quick enough for me, and I could afford it. Plus, I thought it looked pretty trick, and it seemed durable.

Well, turns out that car’s chassis is ancient. Parts are apparently hard to come by, and no matter how careful you are, if you run these things you’re eventually going to need parts. I had my first accident yesterday: I spun the left front wheel off in the yard. No big deal; I’ll have to find the nut, but it’s shiny, so shouldn’t be tough. It wasn’t. What I didn’t know until I had the car back in the garage (therefore destroying specific knowledge of the precise location of the incident) was that I was missing two more parts inboard of the wheel. One of them is shiny, but it’s also tiny. The other is larger, but it’s flat black. Searches were, naturally, fruitless. For all I know I was never even within three feet of the site, and given the size of these parts, three feet might as well be a mile.

I called on RC Hobby Barn again at lunch today, but I got a strong vibe that they just didn’t want to help me. I didn’t have part numbers with me, but I knew the model number of my kit, and I’d think that’d be plenty for an authorized Tamiya dealer, particularly given the glimpse I got of his computer system. Plus, it’s hard for me to believe there aren’t multiple Tamiya cars that use these parts. Nope, have to see the diagram, he said. Bring it by on your next visit, and we’ll add the parts to our monthly Tamiya order. Well, I’m most of 20 miles from the shop, and “monthly” isn’t exactly something I wanted to hear either. I left thinking I’d take care of it online before I cooked dinner tonight.

Ha! That whole 45 minutes was nothing but frustration. The diagram that came with the car is in 825 different languages, and the layout sucks. I wasn’t even sure I was searching on the right part number. After dinner I did finally find what I needed (I think) at Tower Hobbies, and the status is “in stock,” and it seems to be a pretty well put-together site. So we’ll see.

It seems unlikely that I’ll get any more serious about this hobby than I am now, which is not very. But if I do, I’ll not be making my next car a Tamiya product. I’ve had a blast with the car, but it’s absurd to sell a retail product in 2006 for which many of the parts are already discontinued.

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