THE WL TOYS HOON TRUCK (104072)
Review by Evo RC
If you have never heard of WL Toys, well WL Toys is a brand that produce entry level RCs with two targets in mind, price and readily. They are considered toy grade not hobby grade. I know the brand very well as some of you may already know, I’ve sold the brand locally for a number of years and still supply parts and repairs. With their top selling products they quickly got the reputation of good quality RCs at a cheap price. But is this still true today? Is WL Toys heading towards a gold mine or towards bankruptcy? Let’s rewind back a couple of years.
Up till mid 2021, WL Toys was selling serious fun for a low price, there it goes again, price. WL Toys is all about the price. You get a serious entry level RC for a low price. If it goesn’t perform well you wown’t be disappointed as you haven’t spent so much. Turns out that the majority of first time owners are blown away with what they get for such a low price. Well yes and no. Yes because it’s true, the cars are awesome and cheap and no because what WL Toys produce is not their invention at all. All WL Toys models are somewhat based on other brand models that did well in the past, some still exist today. So it’s not something new, WL Toys just copied it and made it as affordable as possible. So everyone can buy a 700 euro car for say a 140 euro. There I go again with prices and that is really the point with WL Toys, the price.
So what changed today? Basically around mid 2021, WL Toys started releasing and announcing brushless models. Well to be exact, brushless versions of models that already exist and the prices went up. Total disaster in my opinion and I’ll explain why.
Anyone who has experimented with RCs will know that taking a stock setup and say, doubling the power comes at a price. The car or parts of it would not be essentially designed for that sort of power so things start failing. In the case of the WL Toys, they took models that although brushed are already seriously fast and they put brushless setups instead. Well sorry to say this out load, but that’s just plain stupid! It’s obviously marketing pressure, they just want to say that they sell brushless cars. We’re talking about 14 scale and 12 scale models that already the brushed versions are maxed out on power and are difficult to control. Putting brushless high rev setups in the same models without changing anything structural and without chucking in a gyro system to at least go in a straight line is just pointless. The worst thing is the price. The price went up. So, if the whole point of getting a WL Toys was because it’s so cheap, now not being cheap anymore, what’s the point at all in getting a WL Toys? Prices are going up steadily and are overlapping hobby grade brands like Arrma, FTX, ZD Racing to mention a few. Why would you buy a small scale WL Toys instead of a larger hobby grade RC? So in my opinion, although the marketing department at WL Toys are patting each other’s backs, it is just a question of time before sales start plummeting, what happens then? The future of WL Toys does not look good.
This is a review about the only brushless model that I felt was much needed, their 10 scale platform. But I couldn’t give you a fair review without going over what has happened at WL Toys these last few years.
The long awaited WL Toys version of the hoon truck, the 104072 is based on the 104001 Match buggy series. Yes the hoon truck is based on a previous 10 scale buggy. This hoon truck knockoff was the first one in Malta. I started testing it out by driving it stock on 2S for a while. For someone’s first RC it’s a blast.
Although brushless as stock, it just lacks low end torque which is what you’d expect from drifter. Lacks traction and lacks control. So it’s something I’m sorry to say that will wow you for 10 minutes and bore you to death anytime after. So as I hate getting bored of stuff, I did what anyone out there would do. I put in a gyro, which honestly doesn’t cost so much today, changed the ESC to a Surpass Hobby 60A, added a cooling fan to the motor, upgraded the servo to a Surpass Hobby 15kg, 3S 80C battery and boom, a completely different truck! You can now drift, take some speed runs and absolutely bash it. A whole new experience. That’s just it, so they converted models to brushless and yet, they didn’t do it well enough. You just can’t have a good brushless car and be dead cheap, so don’t keep trying so hard WL Toys!
Basically with the upgrades I mentioned, it’s what this hoon truck should have been launched with. Instead they spent they extra budget in ridiculous lights. And when I say ridiculous, I mean it. So front headlights with angel eyes, roof light bar, rear roof light bar, left and right signal lights, brake lights and another rear light bar that just doesn’t stop flashing. A christmas tree on wheels basically. And I’m not exaggerating at all. First thing I pulled out was the lights connector from the controller. Another limitation by the way, changed receiver to have longer radio range and the lights controller only works with the stock receiver so basically if you change receiver all your lights will go off and never go on again, so so stupid sorry.
Now guess how much this truck costs? Depends where you get it from but it would cost anything between 280 and 320 euro! Are WL Toys serious? Who on earth is gonna buy this? It’s just stupid! Same price as entry Level Arrmas, more than FTX brushless models which are larger, have better suspensions and overall qality and better equipped to handle that power. So what has WL Toys in store for you with their brushless models, you’ll get a brushless toy grade RC for the price of a hobby grade RC! Save your hard earned money and buy something better. Harsh I know but the truth!