0verkill

iTrader: (8)

6 month review

I am very impressed with the drivetrain and suspension components. This buggy will really take a beating. I've driven it on three different tracks and the only thing I've broken is the spur gear. I have since fixed the spur gear issue with a motor support piece. The spur gear stripping was caused by the Velineon 380 motor shifting to the side. Everything is really easy to work on. Thanks Losi for making such a nice kit, minus some of the electronics.

Day 1 review

I just purchased this little buggy last week and here's my review. I immediately installed the DP front shock protector plate and the spur gear cover. I used a 2S lipo battery and everything else is stock. I just recently went to an indoor clay track.

Positive

- The car handles very well and jumps very well
- Nothing broke

Negative

- The steering post stripped out upon removing the screw for the first time, this just makes it more time consuming to work on until I get a new one
- In stationary position, the wheels will sometimes just start spinning or turning on their own, and that's with nothing else around
- Sometimes the car did not respond to any input from the transmitter, and then all of a sudden it started to respond, it was not far away
- The little screws that hold the center driveshaft cups in place came loose on both the front and rear, which made the car 2wd, so they required blue loctite
- The ball cups popped off constantly, and one time the driveshaft fell out afterwards
- The battery tray does not protect the battery good enough on the center driveshaft side, the batteries I'm using aren't as long as the stock length battery, so they ended up loosening out of position and rubbing against the driveshaft on one corner, so I'm going to have to put a small piece of foam or something on that side to protect the battery
- The sticky tape on the bottom of the ESC will not stick anymore after taking the ESC off the center plate, so the ESC would bounce around and turn off, I'm using velcro now
- The stock servo sucks, the car wanders around
- The body clips are really annoying to take off with everything being so tight, I will probably switch to velcro on the sides

So all in all I'm not really impressed with this platform out of the box. That's just way too many issues to have after 1 day of use, and thank goodness I already had the DP mods before driving or I probably would have had even more issues. When my mini revo was stock many years ago, I didn't have anywhere near that many issues.

ThePanda

iTrader: (68)

sorry to hear you had such bad luck with yours.

Sabin

iTrader: (1)

That's weird. Other than the ESC, I've had none of those issues you've reported.

When I first got mine, I decided to pull the ESC and motor, and use my own setup. I had to actually fight to get that ESC off.

Metal One

I will agree that the stock servo (and servo saver) sucks but then again, nearly every RTR steering servo sucks. Other than that, after two months of solid bashing, I haven't have a single one of those issues with mine. My stepson's stripped a gear and Horizon sent us two sets to replace it.

This review though... now that was bad! No pics. No videos. Very little effort and a lot of negativity, which every forum and discussion area on the internet has too much of already. Did we really need this? Who are you and why should I trust what you have to say? What qualifications do you have to give reviews? Tell me why I should trust a random review on a message board over a much more thorough review from a much more reliable source?

http://www.bigsquidrc.com/team-losi-...ht-rtr-review/

or the 4.6 out of 5 star rating on Amazon?

or any of the dozens of magazine and website reviews easily found with a Google search?

There is a 600 page thread about the Mini 8 right here and dozens of others for various mods and conversions. It's pretty obvious that people are having an absolute blast with this little buggy.

Overall, I'm not impressed with this review. I give it 1 out of 5 stars. You get a point for spelling correctly.

0verkill

iTrader: (8)

Wow, biased much? I described a bunch of negatives because there were a bunch of negatives with the kit out of the box, it's as simple as that. I almost feel like I paid $250 for a roller, because most of the electronics will need to be replaced.

GrimReminder

The losi mini 8ight is a very good and or GREAT buggy once the kinks are worked out. In the end Losi has done a very shitt#$ job with the servo, servo saver, remote and receiver. The motor is decent, the esc is ok once you turn reverse off.

I agree with overkill that there are more negatives than positives with the kit hands down. I wisk Losi would offer this buggy as a roller and or kit.

0verkill

iTrader: (8)

Just installed the Velineon 380 4000kv motor, along with a Boost 2S 2450mah 50/90c battery. The chassis and top plate had to be trimmed for fitment. Now it has some serious torque.





I agree, this should be a great little buggy once the kinks are worked out.

srootster

iTrader: (3)

lookin good! that motor shoulda come stock.

0verkill

iTrader: (8)

I went out to the BMX track yesterday and got some big air. It easily clears any type of jump. The track has some rocks on it, which upset the driving line several times. The stock wheels & tires are just so tiny. So I tried switching over to my Traxxas dish wheels and Response Pro tires. They made a nice improvement in overall handling and didn't make the buggy drive off course going over the rocks as much.

Towards the end of my runs, the buggy started to act more like it was 2wd than 4wd. So I first checked the little screws on the center driveshaft cups and they were still tight. While holding it in the air and hitting the throttle I noticed the rear wheels were spinning fast and the front wheels were spinning very slow. I figured I need to go ahead and tear down the front & rear diffs and check out what type of oil/grease/fluid is in them. I called Losi to see what they recommended and the guy told me to try 5000-7000 weight oil. After doing a quick search online, these cars use just grease instead of oil because the diffs have no seal/o-ring to hold the oil in there. I opened the diffs and they were pretty dry, so I added some automotive green grease. The ring & pinion gears looked great and I added some grease to those as well. Once complete I checked out the 4 wheel drive action and it's back to normal with the front wheels getting a lot more power than before.

Again, no broken parts which is awesome for all the hours of jumping I did. The only thing that was damaged is the rear shock tower got slightly bent on one corner. The mesh is still perfect on the pinion & spur. The ESC got up to 190* one time and the motor never went over 150*. Once the ESC and receiver got really hot, the 3M heavy duty sticky tape no longer held them on to the top plate, so I'm going to have to do something about that.

I am impressed with the quality of the drivetrain & suspension components.

Rac3rX

Many of the issues you had are trivial RTR stuff, and anybody who buys a RTR should go over everything before running, like lock tight in key areas. Then much of your issues are gone over in the various threads, mainly bad range n input response and wondering steering. Bad RTR TX and better (or glued shut like mine) servo saver saves the day.

You should spend more then a day and intelligently researched the kit and other reviews before writing your own IMO. You seem like an eager kid who just ran out to play before going over a rTR built RC ( so often out the box with a bad screw or loose something or other we in the hobby already expect with a RTR..

I dont fanboy the m8 I agree my MERV needs much less but it just seems like your not giving it a fair review and certainly haven't added anything to the table to even warrant it, but hey I don't mind

filztuffe

iTrader: (49)

I love my mini8. I am not new to the mini class, having owned an xray MT18 pro, RC18's, miniT's, Duratrax Vendetta ST's and buggys. Friends and I used to race a brushless ST class together for a couple of years.
In my opinion the Losi mini8 is the best mini 4wd available. It is tough has few breakdowns and parts are available and cheap. We ran a fleet of 9 extended chassis Anderson Sharks, Vendetta ST's with SC chassis. These needed new electronics, optional ball diffs, optional cvd outdrives and lots and lots of spur and pinion gears as well as acorn gears. You could not run with out spending at least as much as the original vehicle cost on less breakable parts!
Now, enter the Losi mini8, really needs nothing, can put up with servo noise. The esc and motor are fine, the mini8 in stock form moves right along. This is a tough little buggy. We run 5 of these on our track(60'x30'-6'lanes, Trackmaster lap timing) The Losi is the best to come along yet. That's my 2 cents worth.

0verkill

iTrader: (8)

You must not have read my post above yours, specifically my last sentence. The issues I have with the electronics are not "trivial". The electronics that I received with this kit are garbage and can be really annoying and/or dangerous for the buggies sake. Losi needs to offer this as a roller.

Rac3rX

First off I specifically said many of the issues you have had and NOT all the issues you have are trivial. The TX is absolut garbage and swapping it out is problem solved. Continuing on my point its commion knowledge in the M8 world so ANYBODY who buys a M8 needs to chuck the TX in the trash and NEVER attempt to use it. I dont see a reason to cry over this, the kit is so damn cheep a Fly Sky system or etc is no big deal and even with the price tag is still lower then a MERV. I usually change out the TX and RX off a RTR kit as 99% of RTR TX and RX suck, aside from Traxxas who have a seriously great TX and RX right out the box.

Now the stipped screw, no lock tight on the drive cups screws and a loose MERV battery (Not a proper fit) etc is ALL trivial



Ill be straight to the point. One day run reviews are the absolut worst and hurt more then they help. Instread of getting a well done review that could help people in the market, you gave absolutly no usefull information that is not already covered with much better info details and opinion...

Sabin

iTrader: (1)

your "discovered issues" are very very well known. and have been known for almost a year now.

It strikes me as odd that you didn't know about them before buying the buggy.

Rac3rX

or look around before posting up, some threads here with many pages of great info on the M8 it appears he totally missed.