My (Newbie) Wraith Spawn First Impressions

[jtschmitz]

This got longer than I expected, fair warning

I wanted to give my thoughts and impression of the Wraith as a new driver to this type of vehicle. I tried to target it more towards someone who is new to the Wraith, whither its their first RC or their 10th. Hopefully its helpful to someone.

In all candor I did own a Slash 4x4 and a AX10 about 3 years ago and got out of the hobby. The AX10 was nearly stock and I really did not enjoy crawling at the time. My Slash was pretty heavily modified and I ran it all the time. Eventually I got busy doing other things, the track was an hour away, my backyard bashing buddies sold their trucks so I was done. About a year ago I was given a beat down 2WD Slash and just could not get into it. It broke its universal joints constantly. Not a lot of fun behind the house in grass due to lack of traction. When I had traction it was to fast for my backyard, and still no buddies with trucks so racing was fun but not worth the commitment. Just felt like I was done with the RC hobby despite always wanting another rig.

Fast forward to 2 weeks ago when my buddy and I picked up Axial Wraith's to try and get back into it. We actually went into the LHS to pick up back yard bashers with an eye towards the Stampede 4x4, the Yeti, or the Wraith. They had a Wraith Spawn RTR, and a Wraith Kit in stock and only 1 of everything else. So to keep the same vehicle chassis, we went with the Wraith. My buddy had a Castle SCT combo and a spare radio, so he took the kit and I took the RTR.

Background out of the way... I am 100% back into RC's, and the Wraith is an amazing truck. I really expected to be disappointed but really wanted another truck and always was interested in the Wraith. My expectation of disappointment derived from the fact that I got bored with a AX10 and was more interested in the speed and racing of the Slash 4x4 both on a track (though it was truly horrible at that) but in impromptu backyard bash races. I LOVED that and didn't think the Wraith could do bash like that... and quite simply it CANT.

BUT in my backyard I have never had more fun. It destroys grass. It crawls but with wheelspeed. Watching the suspension work and flex is great fun. Driving it is different than a fast Slash. It requires careful throttle and steering inputs and it feels like a skill that is easy to learn but hard to master. I can now power-slide on loose dirt on demand. On 3S it picks up the front tires. Went from crawling on rocks, to trailing on a foot trail, to splashing in puddles, through a wet log obstacle course, and up a big hillclimb to my house. Taking this a step further I looped it into an impromptu race track and now can do laps that includes tough crawling, high speed 'S' curve, a hill climb, and weaving through trees. It NEVER feels slow in any of this even thought im maybe hitting 10MPG. I feel lost (that sense of being completely consumed by what you are doing: loosing track of time, forgetting stresses of the day, etc...) in this vehicle like I did with my Slash on the best days of racing with my buddies, but all of this on my little .5 acre lot without the need for a dedicated anything. One of my other hobbies is single track dirt bike trail riding. I am now imagining taking this truck on all of those trails and having a blast. Oh and a 1.5hr run time on a 5000MAH battery pack cant be beat.

Your mileage may vary, but having only driven by myself and only comparing against this, its the most fun I have ever had with a RC. I owned my Slash 4x4 for a year and a half, I had a ton of fun, just not as much as with the Wraith. If you are on the fence, I highly recommend it from a 'fun' standpoint.

But it has not been all good. My experiences with broken parts:

First day I ran it for 1.5 hours on a pack with no issues. Bone stock it was quite fun. No water, just dirt and logs. I was running a Tamiya to deans adapter. Took it to my LHS had deans put on to get around the adapter, and bought a 3S to try. Second run I connected the 3S after dinking around with 2S and the ESC smoked. Got super hot and I couldn't leave it connected with 2S or 3s. Worried the 3S was bad, tried it in a cheap China ESC I had from years ago and had no issues. Couldn't run this ESC as it was not waterproof and it was raining. End of RC for the weekend.

Warranty support went something like this: Called Axial, after about 20 rings a person picked up with "Hello" (not Axial support how can I help you, etc just hello...) and after explaining what happened he instructed me to send in an email for support and to get an address to ship it back to Axial. Told me it would be around 15 business days before I got it back. So 1 run, 2 days of ownership, 3 week wait for another. I sent the email and never got a response. 2 days later I sent another email. Waited the weekend, still no response Monday so I called in again. Was told that I need to ship it to some address I could not find on the website. I felt sketchy about this and asked for confirmation via email. Waited another day for that and still did not get a response. A few days later I called in again and found out there was 10 day warranty which I was now over...

I took it to my LHS and explained. They processed the warranty return for me, and apparently managed to get a replacement sent. I was not overly pro-active in getting the ESC replaced through Axial.... I was pretty bummed it burnt, but did not expect a 10-day warranty. I can accept that I took to long, but the experience I had, end to end, was horrible. I have heard this is not normally the case, but it WAS with me and left a bad taste in my mouth. My only other RMA type process with another RC provider was with Traxxas and was much better.

I decided that I did not want to use the AE-5 and traded in my replacement credit (good LHS) which towards a SV3 and I attached a CCBEC so I could run 3S safely. After a few days wait for the SV3 I got everything home, put back together, and was testing the new ESC performance. The SV3 with that stock 20T was great, really enjoyed it.... Until I attempted to break, accidentally went reverse at a few MPH started to do a endo, and stripped my idler gear. Again completely my fault, I was on carpet and went from about 1/3 speed to reverse, but pretty disappointing. Stripped the truck down and found the idler. The three output screws were VERY loose. I should have checked them, and im sure this contributed but again I was down and this time again I didnt get to run it. But another trip to the hobby store to get replacement gears. Decided to stick with plastic, and got two so I would have a spare.

Next day ran without issues... for about a hour until the servo went out. Was doing a fair bit more rock crawling and probably cooked it. I threw a stock Traxas servo from my 2WD slash (had to use the servo saver) and ran it for the rest of the day like that.

Overall I was pretty disappointed with Axial's CS. The broken parts seem to be pretty normal, except for the burnt ESC. I have spent more than I expected, and more than I did on the Slash to replace broken parts with stronger parts. Many of my upgrades on the Slash were "for fun" or upgrades. Much of the money I have spent on the Axial so far (or want to spend) has been to replace some of the components that aren't quality anyway. Making things stronger because it either broke or fear that it would break. That's not to say I didn't break things on the Slash. But normally was was from hitting a tree at 35MPH, or attempting a double back-flip off a roof. In that sense the Wraith is treated much nicer, but parts are still breaking. This is OK for now (so long as the wife is OK with it I guess!) but is something to think about if you are just getting into one.

So there it is. Based on a person who is a newbie to the hobby, and brand new to the Wraith... I loved it. Even with the added cost its the most fun i've had with a RC and I cant wait to go hiking and bring it along. On top of that, my 11 year old daughter was able to drive it and had a blast... So now it is time to get a SCX10 so we both can have one! Hah!

This got very long. My TL;DR is that the Wraith is a great RC, tons of character, that can go anywhere. It appears to have some QC or weak part issues but if you can afford a few replacement parts it's worth it.

[PSW]

Good to hear your LHS was supportive. Ive just got in the wraith as well after 7 years of strictly HPI Baja, HPI's support was very good here in the UK which is probably one of the reasons I stayed with the product as long as I did.

[Eric0424]

On the "Contact" page, but oddly not on the "Warranty Info" page. It's not actually Axial either, it appears to be the Hobbico address.

CUSTOMER SUPPORT


Contact:

Phone: 877-64-AXIAL (877-642-9425)
Fax: 949.600.8645
Email: service@axialracing.com

Operation Hours:

8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m., Central Time, Monday - Friday
Closed Saturday and Sunday

Address for Warranty and Repairs:

Hobby Services
3002 N. Apollo Dr. Suite #1
Champaign, IL 61822

[BUGGYBOY]

Nice write up. I have had several axial products as well as several associated and tekno cars. A friend and I also just bought two spawns about two months ago. I have had a wraith before but I got too carried away with the speed quest and that just cost me big $$$ so I sold that awhile ago. Anyway back to the spawn. Right away we both had servo issues and I had a esc go bad also. I however got real lucky I guess with the service. They replaced the servos and two esc's right away and we were over the ten days but my first call was within the ten days. The replacement esc's were the ae 2 and when I got those and found out that they do not work with the 3s I called them back and they sent out two more of the ae 5 's. Wow. I got lucky and they did not even want the other ones back. I need up selling all of those as well as the stock tires and wheels so I could upgrade the goods. I am now running on my comp crawler tires/wheels a water proofed mmp and a futaba 400 oz they servo but I am keeping the stock motor until it goes out. I will stay with a brushed motor though. You are right it is plenty fast for good trail running and Rick crawling. I really like this one and plan on keeping it for quite a while. I am sorry you had such a issues with product support. I had a great experience with them. Enjoy your rig

[thirdeye]

When I first got my wraith it broke a lot, was kinda disappointed only drove for an hour or so before something broke. It took a little bit to get it to where everything works without breaking.