[Music] hello world welcome back to the razer rc and it's time to do the full review of the traxxas mags v2 version so this is obviously an update to the original v1 traxx max which i also had i had actually had two maxes like an original max and also one i converted to a wide max so very familiar with this line of vehicles i've made many many videos about the max v1 so uh yeah i'm very familiar with what this entails now the traxxas max v2 sells for 570 dollars here in the united states uh
does feature a few minor updates to it so the main ones being the sledgehammer tires these are a little bit grippier than the original max tires they did lengthen the truck by about an inch so about an inch longer in wheelbase does have a bigger battery strap compartment and then they did uh increase the width as well by about inch and a half by basically including the wide max kit already in the vehicle so uh yeah traxxas max this is a 110 scale electric four-wheel drive monster truck i'm very very familiar with all the other
monster trucks out there i own pretty much all the one tenth and one eighth scale monster trucks out there from associated from corali from arma from losi pretty much everybody out there i'm very very familiar with if not own pretty much every single one of them so i'm going to rate this in seven different categories as usual talking about the electronics the build the design the support and maintenance the performance the durability following the value and then giving you my final conclusion on the max and how i feel about the truck so this has long
been one of my favorite bashers out there it has legendary durability they did make some changes pretty much to popular demand i personally kind of like the original max and the way i drove but we'll talk about how this these changes basically affect the vehicle so kicking off we're going to talk about the electronics and the max comes with your standard tqi radio from traxxas pretty good radio actually has a lot of adjustments although it does have kind of this complicated led mentioning system to get through it and make all those adjustments but if you
get the traxxas link that does actually uh open those all up so you can modify them through your phone a really nice thing about the tqi is that it does allow you to bind multiple models to the same radio so i've got five or six traxxas cars i just use a single radio for all of them and that's pretty nice that i don't have to have you know five or six radios with batteries to control each and every one of them trigger feels good uh the ergonomics are pretty good the nice film wheel takes four
double a's it's 2.4 gigahertz uh no external antenna so overall pretty good radio definitely uh very good for the rtr class popping off the body we can take a look at the vehicle inside so it's got that quick release body that you know pretty much all the new traxxas cars come with and you can see what it comes with it's a 4s capable esc a large x-max size servo this is kind of a proprietary size traxxas servo so if you want to use an aftermarket one you would have to get an adapter plate to fit
in a different 25 tooth servo and then a 36 by 70 can 2400 kv motor it's also shared with the haas so it is 3s or 4s capable but obviously you would want to run this on 4s uh esc is a little bit lackluster in power i think the motor is okay a lot of people like rich duper bash have upgraded to like a max 8 esd and now it's quite a bit improvement in terms of power servo is slow although has a fair amount of torque so it is plastic geared although i never really
had problems with the my original a couple of maxes so i don't think they really break very easily but it is slow and plastic gear and a little bit of a cost saving measure in terms of electronics i'm actually going to give it a fair score i'm going to give it three stars out of five i think it's fair uh esc may be a little bit down there's no programming options power wise i think it's also a little bit down could probably use from uh benefit from some capacitors servo again it's okay you know it's
fair because it actually has decent amount of torque never really had problems with it actually breaking anything like that but it is quite slow and i don't like the fact that it is a weird size and so you do need to buy extra parts if you want to replace that motor wise it's totally fine no issues there and it's nice that it has a heat sink and fan sort of built in so that you know provides additional cooling and i do like the radio quite a bit i think the tqi radio is definitely one of
the best rtr radios out there so that is a nice improvement um over some of the other options out there so in the electronics department i think it's fair three stars you know all these ratings are based on how this compares to the competition you know other things in the 110 scale class one eight scale class to me this is kind of in between kind of a one-ninth scale uh type vehicle it's larger than a one-eighth scale uh buggy actually but smaller than a zero one eighth scale triggy but then obviously quite a bit bigger
than your steering tenth scale monster trucks like the haas or stampede or granite so it's kind of in between and that's how i'm going to be giving its ratings build wise the max actually came pretty well built i find traxxas vehicles in general be pretty well put together they are manufactured in taiwan which is a little bit more expensive my opinion has a little bit better quality control than the stuff coming out of china so uh in general i find the track scars to be fairly well built the only issue i had was that the
center differential did have a missing basically shim inside the center differential so there's a little shim that covers the o-ring and prevents it from basically getting torn up mine was missing and i didn't really notice until i took apart the center differential so that was a little bit of a bummer that that was missing so i am going to give it three stars just for that there was an issue there that i did have to order pars did have to completely reassemble the center differential and kind of the downside is that i would never have
known that unless i actually took apart the center differentials so it's kind of a hidden flaw in the manufacturing process but overall the traxxas is fair um other than that i think everything is put together quite well uh i always set my end points always calibrate the esc's but you know the rest of truck you know drove straight no issues with it driving out of the box so from that perspective was totally fine but i am dinging it just for that missing uh shim incentive furniture so three stars for the build um most rc cars
nowadays do come reasonably well built and will drive but um hopefully they're not missing parts like this one was the max is obviously very similar to something like an x-maxx shares a lot of the same architecture kind of that bathtub shaped body the double shear shock mounting locations little shocks which is nice symmetrical front and rear arms and wheels and drive shafts and everything does have plastic drive shafts which i think is a bit of a bummer all the electronics down one side here waterproof electronics and then a very spacious battery strap over here on
the left side so that's kind of one improvement that they made over the original max the original max had some problems it would only fit kind of narrower type 4s pack so i think it was 38 millimeters in height is kind of what you were limited to and lengthwise a little bit shorter than this this is a very expensive very roomy battery strap so nice to see that no wheelie bar no sway bars uh not much adjustments in this vehicle there's no different shock uh locations up top there are a couple different spots on the
bottom uh so those are kind of the good things about the the max i think it is designed for durability and that's kind of what it's good at does have a center differential and cush drive which is i think is a nice improvement all steel or aluminum uh metal drivetrain down the middle although it does have plastic drive shafts like i mentioned out to the corners now for things i don't like number one is probably the shocks the rear shocks and front chucks are exactly the same that does pose a problem because the rear shocks
are too short it does have issues landing we'll talk more about that really most modern monster trucks on the 4-wheel drive side should have longer shocks in the rear they didn't fix that that was my one of my complaints with the v1 another thing i don't like are the stub axles so it does not have a standard 17 millimeter stub axles you do have to use like this insert into the wheels you can buy e-reveal stub axles and they fit just fine not too expensive i think they're like 20 or so but it would have
been nice to see that included in the vehicle does have threaded hinge pins all the way throughout i don't know why they did that i mean that's i guess a cost saving measure but the 30 hinge pins do tend to back out especially this front one on the left and this back one over here on the left hand side from the rear uh that i find annoying one of my complaints with the original v1 and the last thing is a little bit of a pain to work on getting into the center differential or getting to
the rear differential does take quite a bit of screws to remove i think it's something like 20 screws to like remove all the bottom pieces everything gets worked on from the bottom which is really really weird most rc cars are either from the top or something like stampede or haas you can basically pull off the front and rear and this does provide some ability to basically separate the front and rear halves but that's not actually how you get to the differential so there's not really a reason to do that in my opinion so design wise
i think it's kind of one of the weaknesses they designed this for durability and i do think it is one of the most durable rc cards out there but a lot of design issues i think the way it's put together to work on and then also from adjustment side point and then also just areas where they you know basically have some cost cutting measures like the the non 17 millimeter stub axles the threaded you know hinge pins things like that i find are pretty annoying i don't like the servo you know it is a weird
size you can't fit a standard size servo so uh there are some other things i like the clipless body thingy is kind of nice although the body does tend to fall off by itself so that's kind of annoying but yeah in the design category i do feel like this is a little bit down from other vehicles out there plastic axles i think at the price point that they've got this selling at 570 it should have a little bit more options a little bit more metal parts a little bit uh you know areas where they have
cut some cost so in the design category i'm going to give it two stars i think it is a little below average working on this thing is also again kind of annoying so in design yeah one of the you know sort of minor weaknesses of this vehicle now this may pass awesome people out there and i'm just expressing my opinion i know a lot of people get upset when i criticize their favorite vehicle maybe you own a max maybe you love your max you think it's the greatest driving rc car you've ever had and that's
fair that's fine but this is just my opinion performance again i think is an area where the max suffers a bit power-wise i think it's a little bit down the top speed is totally fine and so we're in that low 50s mile per hour range which which is totally fine nothing no issues there but you can tell it's a little slower to get to that 50 miles per hour the punch on this thing does seem a little bit down the power delivery it's not quite as rough instantaneous and aggressive as other forest vehicles out there
i also have the crane 4s i also have a techno mt410 which i would consider you know two of the main primary kind of competitors to this vehicle so power wise i do feel like it's a little bit down in terms of the punch and the acceleration um top speed is totally fine now the way it drives again i find it's a little bit lacking steering wise it's got a pretty slow servo it's got a service here which is weak but not totally bad really the main complaint is going to be the servo on why
it's so slow steering steering wise it's also pretty vague with that wide max kit it does make pretty wide turning radius circles the narrow max or the original v1 max did steer quite a bit better this it is very noticeable even if you send your endpoints even if you do some tuning with this rc car it will not drive quite as well as the v1 in terms of the steering and handling department obviously it's wider it doesn't flip over as much which is one you know main complaint with the original v1 max i do have
videos on how to address that i don't think you need to go to a wide max to get it to avoid flipping over on asphalt yes i would say you need the wide max but if you're on dirt um any sort of like reasonable off-road surface i think you get handle totally fine uh without the wine max but they included that because that's what people want that's what people thought they needed but realize when you make something more stable when you when you widen it when you lengthen it it's going to be more stable but
what does stable really mean what you've actually done is reduce the steering reduce the handling actually make it less agile and more stable so it's it doesn't flip over but it also doesn't steer quite as well as the original v1 now jumping and landing is the last category and again that is one major complaint i had with the v1 like i mentioned many times the rear shocks are too short uh they don't have enough range of travel uh the rear end slots a ton um you do need to do some major shock tuning and get
to this thing to land reasonably obviously they meant this as a send it type basher and from a durability perspective i think they nailed it this is one of the most if not the most durable rc cars you can buy but where you're lacking is honestly in the landing department i don't know why they didn't really spend more effort on trying to make this thing land better because if you jump in more than like four or five feet it slaps really really bad even after some major tuning you know if i'm jumping at 10 feet
it still slaps really bad people are working on some different pistons and i have done some tuning and i'll do that in another video but out of the box this is one of the worst jumping rc cars out there uh every other monster truck in its class will not land anywhere nearly as bad as this so from that perspective i think it's below average so over on the performance category again this has nothing to do with durability this is purely on how it actually drives how it handles how it jumps and lands how it accelerates
how it breaks i'm giving you a below average score i'm giving it two stars i think this is one of the worst driving rc cars in its class and i don't say that lightly because i own many many monster trucks of this type out there and this is probably the worst driving of them all personally in my opinion on the good side the brakes are actually phenomenal they nail the brake tuning right out of the box i mean it's 95 there i modified some minor things on the braking side but you know it's really close
out of the box don't really think people need to make any adjustments to that so i know this is going to make a lot people upset but i'm giving you my objective opinion owning many many rc cars i race rc cars i own like tons of monster trucks and performance wise this is one of the areas i think the max is lacking now the flip side of performance is going to be durability and i would say this is probably the most durable rc car out of the box that you can buy certainly a monster truck
ambassador you know the x-maxx is very durable i think this is actually a little bit more durable than the x-max the x-maxx will bend center shafts um if you launch it you know double backflips in there that kind of thing this one is super durable now i do think the v1 is slightly more durable than this because with the narrow arms you don't have quite as much leverage out to the sides um not as much you know basically torque being applied to the arms to these hubs all that kind of stuff when you land this
thing when you crash on a corner but it's still super super durable definitely five stars in the durability category this is one era where they nailed it with traxxas they tried to make the most durable rc car out there and i think they succeeded this thing is a beast there are bigger heavier rc cars out there but i don't think that makes them more durable this is kind of that perfect blend of size speed performance uh and durability i think that you get in this package so never really had any problems with the v2 i
haven't driven it quite as much as the v1 the v1 i did break some things i did break a shock shaft i did break a c hub did break a fan fairly minor stuff like that but no major issues i think i broke a rear hub as well so from that perspective i think this is one of the most durable rc cars and again that was owning a couple of the v1s over two years so you know pretty minor crash damage and things i had to fix in the lifetime of the v1 and the v2
since i've owned it i actually have not fixed anything nothing has broken the truck seems super solid out of the box i think this is the most durable rc car that they make so in the derby category of course five stars the max if you want maximum durability if you want something you can just send it not worry too much if you land it wrong this is probably the best one out there from that perspective i also think it makes kind of a good uh not really beginner's car but if you're sort of nearer to
rc cars learning how to jump rc cars learning how to do tricks and backflips and that thing this is definitely one that i think is good to practice on traxxas is one of the easiest rc cars to own and the reason for that is that they have parts everywhere i mean almost every local hobby shop will carry traxxas will carry a ton of parts for the most part parts do tend to be in stock now at the release of the v2 max they are missing some parts like the bodies and chassis i think you can't
quite get yet but those should be rectified soon and so in general i think traxxas is definitely one of the easiest brands to own uh from a parts available perspective their customer support is pretty easy to work with their warranty is kind of short i think it's 30 or 60 days or something like that not quite as generous as some of the other brands but you know for the most part they're pretty easy to work with they have definitely sent out parts to me uh when they were manufacturing defects and stuff like that without really
any questions or anything like that so um yeah from that perspective i think the max is definitely uh tops in that category now from a maintenance side i do think this below average is a little bit trickier to work on it is kind of weird i do think there's you know a lot of screws and a lot of pieces you have to remove to get to the different differentials uh to the motor uh meshing and that kind of thing is slightly annoying but um once you figure it out it's not too bad but definitely a
little more annoying than your standard rc monster truck out there so in the support and maintenance category i'm gonna give it four stars a little bit harder to work on but the support side is really really convenient it's nice to be able to just go to your local hobby shop pick up a part if you ever break something slap it on and have it running again you know in an hour or so so the support means category four stars definitely above average and one of the better ones out there when the original max came out
it sells for 550 or 530 dollars kind of depending on when you got it um they have increased the price to 570 and when the original max came out i thought 550 was a ridiculous amount of money to pay for basically a plastic 4s rc monster truck competitors at the time were things like the crane forest which sold for 400 so 150 dollars less for similarly equipped vehicle uh but a funny thing has happened in the last couple years the prices of every rc car has gone up uh pretty much across the board certainly for
bashers and race kits things are you know fifty hundred dollars more than they were two years ago and the max only went up by 20 bucks so i think that's quite fair especially when you consider that you know a little bit more for your money you got a little bit bigger vehicle you got the wide max kit you've got the sledge hammer tires which i think are better than the original tires they're not great but they're okay now um and actually halfway decent on dirt so in the valley category i think the original max i
rated a one star out of five at the time 515 was absurd for a 4s plastic rc car when armors for example were selling for 550 they were actually cheaper for a 6s metal armor you can get way cheaper than original max but now the armors have increased they're like 600 now uh pretty much every rc car is kind of in that five to six hundred dollar price range something like that kaiju is still cheaper but for the most part 500 is not unusual for this sort of mid-range type rc car so in the valley
category i'm going to give it two stars it's still below average i still think it's a bit expensive for what you get but considering most rc cars are five or six hundred dollars for this classic vehicle for kind of an eight scale or nine scale monster truck you know it's really not that bad as before so i'm glad that they were able to you know sort of keep the price pretty close to the original v1s and so i'm giving it two stars below average but you know i'm not going to dang it quite as much
as i did the original so my final thoughts on the traxxas max v2 it has some pros it has some cons and honestly i've really liked the original max when it first came out um i didn't really have too many complaints about it at the time the price was obviously way too high i thought the handling was quite poor the jumping and landing was was kind of poor but um the the v2 they made some changes right they kept the price pretty much the same they widen it which makes it more stable less likely to
roll over but my opinion it actually steers less handles a little bit worse so i'm not totally convinced that that's actually an improvement tires are improvement they did fix the the small battery tray that they had before so that is a major improvement there are only only a few 4s hard case packs that would fit within the original max v1 although you could get soft case packs that would actually fit so would i recommend the max v2 it kind of depends what you're looking for if you're kind of newer if you like to just launch
it maybe you don't land all that well maybe you don't care that much about steering all you do is just drive it in straight line just off a wooden ramp launch it in there and and that's all you do then the max is actually a pretty good vehicle you'll probably want to look into upgrading the esc at some point it is a little bit slow it doesn't rotate super well in the air you know it can do double backflips but there are other cars out there that can do triple backflips of this size so from
a performance standpoint i think it's down that's really the area i find it's lacking the most it just doesn't handle that well from a steering from a drivability perspective it's a little vague a little slow doesn't steer particularly well but it does actually live up to the durability side so um most durable rc car out there probably this this is honestly absurdly durable not that you can't break things of course you can break any oscar but out of the box i don't think there's a more durable rc car out there but you're going to be
lacking a bit on the performance side this is not going to drive as well maybe power delivery wise you're going to feel it's it's kind of down you definitely want to do some tuning with the shocks out of the box this thing lands pretty bad i can't think of another r square that's quite as bad as this out of the box concerning it's a 4s monster truck so yeah those are my thoughts on the traxxas max v2 [Music] it's a good car and certainly one of the ones to consider especially if you want durability if
that if that's all you care about durability then this is the one to get but if you're looking for something a little more on the performance side i think the techno mt410 kind of gives you most of the durability of this as well as way way way better performance crane 4s has been discontinued so we'll have to see what's going on with that arma has talked about them releasing a new update to that but it's been a year or so since they mentioned anything about the creighton for us but hopefully they'll re announce that and
team corelli has got something on the horizon there's leaks of something called the skeeter looks like a 4s aluminum chassis a really nice looking forest monster truck so hopefully that comes out soon and we'll know whether this is the best 4s monster truck out there about the time of this video this is kind of the only 4s monster truck in this class the techno is a kit and a little bit more of a race truck converted into a basher um so if all you want is a 4s super durable rc car traxxas max is definitely
the one to get kind of the only one to get so anyways those are my thoughts on the max v2 uh throw down a comment below what you think the max e2 do you have one do you think it's an improvement do you think it drives well whatever your thoughts uh don't forget to hit the like share and subscribe buttons look for more videos soon thanks for watching
