Have a low profile BK Servo in my 2wd buggy. Never having had any experience prior to brushless servos.

By hand, servo has always felt a little bound, super tight and a little notchy/gritty... in any event I'm taking it out and putting it in another buggy and feels pretty notchy. I don't believe I feel this while driving. Given I recall it feeling similar when new I'm thinking brushless servos feel tighter/more bound than regular HV or digital servos...

In any event, is this symptomatic of brushless servos? Normal? Thx

I've been told to not try to manually rotate brushless servos due to the magnet strength of the motor? My brushless servos are also pretty tough to rotate and one of them especially, a sanwa servo that feels exactly like what you describe but works fine in use.

I've got a couple brushless JX servos in my 1/8 truggy and buggy (also my first experience with brushless servos), while I agree they tend to offer more resistance when the system is turned off, these are the smoothest servos I've ever had the pleasure to run on the track, I'm completely sold on brushless servos going forward

Brushless servos in general are more difficult to turn by hand due to the motor design, this applies to most brands.

Servos should not be turned by hand. I don't understand why people do that.

If it feels fine on track it is fine.

An electric motor powered by hand is a generator......

I think the same people who say servos should not be turned by hand are the same people who say cars should never be ran in reverse

Mine seems great. Just so much going on in a buggy. And when you take a servo out and it feels notchy in weird places these are all the indicators of a bad HV (non brushless), servo. So it's very difficult to determine when/if you're servo needs new gears etc as the feeling is that of a digital non BL servo that is totally worn.... unless mine is and I have no idea. No way to know

FWIW, I've always found that the higher quality the servo, the harder it is to rotate by hand. Tighter tolerances, better magnets, etc., etc.