All four shock bodies double tapped, can't put the shock collars on. The skid plate cooled warped and twisted in two directions, can't put passenger rail on the side, nor get the transmission in the truck. The rear axle assembly was supplied with one rear stub axle and one front stub axle - the rear axle can't be completed.
Can't give it any stars...all three errors stop this kit from being completed.
In thirty-five years of building kits, by far the worst I've experienced - $500.00 kit? Contacted the company minutes after finding the stub axle missing and it's been more than a week from a "part is being ordered." The shock and skid plate issue, I didn't bother mentioning, I'll pay for replacements when available, finish the build and sell the truck with unpainted body. Pretty sure it's not a wide spread issue with this kit, but this is has been my experience.
Fifth Vanquish kit, three have had pretty serious quality issues - this will be my last.
Vanquish VS4-10 Phoenix kit. Nice kit, very durable plastic material. I would say the quality of the plastic is higher than your average RC car/crawler. Much more detail of course it being a vanquish product. The quality of the portals are made to last a very long time and the brass sleeves are an awesome idea. Shocks are ok. You always loose that travel with portals. It was a nightmare getting the spring adjusters threaded on however the shocks work just fine (Use a little grease) I love the hinged body. Battery tray is towards the back so you need to ad some weight up front. Preferably on the wheels. Transmission is solid and works great. Wheels and tires I used my own aluminum bead locks with brass hubs. Looks and detail of the body is very nice. I bought a Land Cruiser grill from KC that is a direct fit. Overall I’m happy with it. And the price is right. I would like to see the same kit with straight axles.
My honest opinion of the VS410 Phoenix. Quality is amazing, everything went together smoothly, even though its mostly plastic. Build was fairly straightforward, but here are a few tips: There are a few mis-prints so be sure to pay close attention to photos, online manual is updated. This kit WILL require specific size servo horns, not included with kit. The steering horn is 20mm and the shift horns are 24mm, make sure the horn works with the servo of your choosing, vanquish uses 25t splines. Shock collars are plastic, this is probably the most frustrating part of the build. They cross thread real easily! Use another shock collar to help you line up the collars with shock body threads. Also use your shims! They include a few but my rear output had at least 5mm play, too much for my liking and had to order extras shims. Vehicle only takes 540 can motors, nothing bigger. Hobby Wing/ Spectrums Fusions esc/motors is too big to fit. Non-Vanquish owners, stub axles are 5mm and not 4mm, your beadlocks may or may not fit depending on the hub. My Gearhead beadlocks were a drop in fit with no modifications.
Onto truck performance, in stock form, it drives like a pig. My friends stock Ecto did better than mine. Tires are narrow and not very sticky, better as trail tires. Truck is quite tippy, I am not sure if its because of the shorter 80mm shocks. Recommend heavier wheels, tires and shock oil. Steering angle is pretty amazing combined with OD it turns pretty sharp. It has RWD also, pretty fun for light bashing. Also recommend a shorty pack as the 4000 mah packs weigh the truck down shifting weight to the back axles. Still love my Phoenix though, fun part is trying to improve the truck little by little! Hoping to see a straight axle Phoenix or portal delete option soon!
Really cool kit overall. This is my first crawler. I’m giving it 4 stars due to the poor shock collar design and multiple errors in the instruction manual.
This is my first rock crawler so I don't have too much to compare it against, but I do agree with some previous reviews. I got the kit because it looked solid and was noticeably different from the other crawlers I see out there, with a neat transmission and body. Shock collars are VERY finnicky about getting threaded on straight. Take your time and look at the collar as it first goes on. If it's crooked, back it off and try engaging at a different point. Instructions were generally fine, but were missing some steps, such as slipper tightening suggestions. I'm not as impressed with the body mount system as some poeple are, I find it finnicky and frustrating to get the clips on and off since they're hidden and hard to get fingers to. I've already broken one idler in the transmission, likely because my slipper was too tight. Vanquish replaced the gear so quite happy with that customer service. The tires that come in the kit aren't great for rock crawling, I feel like they could have cut the cost of the kit even more by letting people pick their own wheels/tires. Repair access doesn't seem great, I have to take a bunch of things apart to get the transmission out. Finally, the body heavy so cg is high, so out of the box it's not going to be a great performer. I swapped wheels/tires (Rock Beasts, CI foams soft in front/ firm in rear), added some brass wheel rings and it made a huge difference. The transmission is cool, despite the broken gear, and the DIG is fast and easy to engage. OD and 2wd is pretty cool, especially if you're trail running. I haven't notice a huge difference between OD and regular 4WD, but I'm also a novice to rock crawling. I'm running a 2700kv Holmes Puller pro with Mamba X and I think I may have gone with a slightly higher kv motor if I had to pick again. It's decently quick, but a stock TRX4 sport will outrun it. Generally I'm happy with the kit, but it's still at a premium price for something that isn't a stunning performer out of the box.
Great kit!! Went together well direction could use some work since there are options that they don’t go over.
More like 2.5 stars. Instructions were HORRIBLE about as bad as the Capra kit instructions (ifykyk) It went together ok for me, but I imagine if this was my first kit it would be a nightmare.
Shock collars are made of a soft plastic that likes to cross thread. I gave up and bought Traxxas shock collars which threaded on with some resistance. The truck looks nice, the DIG is so much better than Axial's DIG. The selectable OD is a cool feature (there are you 2.5 stars) BUT on the third time out, teeth broke off of both idler gears. Sheared clean off, poor quality steel. I get that Vanquish tried to hit a price point to compete with Axial and Element, but both companies make a better quality kit overall for significantly less money. Perhaps VP should stick to the high end (where they absolutely kill it apparently) and leave the mid market to the big companies who have been doing this for a while.
These issues would be relatively minor if it out performed my other rigs, but it does not. My Capra is a significantly better crawler. Had I known then what I know now, I think I would've skipped purchasing the VP Phoenix. Money would've been much better spent elsewhere
I am a huge fan of Vanquish products and the quality of there products this kit build fell extremely short of expectations first major issues the bearings in the kit for the front portal shafts were incorrect inside diameter, I had to order replacement bearings online continuing the build ran into yet another large issue when assembling the shocks the adjustment screws are terrible quality and do not thread on or adjust ver well there are a number of YouTube videos showing this issue, and there are not any aftermarket replacements at this time, the final issue was the suspension links the kit I received had 3 upper rear links and only 1 lower rear link, this forced me to use aftermarket links until customer support could send a replacement, all the issues aside I believe the overall design is 3/5 due to the high center of gravity and overall travel of suspension being very tight and lacking when it comes to articulating, the tires seam to be okay at best but will have to be replaced to do anything competitive with this kit compared to the trx4 kit for similar build I choose the trx4 the Traxxas has better center of gravity and better build even though the vs410 has the fancy transmission with dig and overdrive the bad outweigh the good on this one I would not purchase again
Fantastic kit. I took it slowly and had no issues other than my own misunderstandings which I easily resolved. Instruction book was pretty good though I can see how some steps could be interpreted in different ways, take your time an double check each step. Yes the shock collars were too tight but a quick blast with a hair dryer they went on without a fight in about 2 mins total. Very tight chassis layout so you will need to do your research on what components you select. It is tight for a reason though, absolute performance out of the box, though I can't speak for the hardcore rock guys as we do mainly bush bashing/ hill climb stuff here. Stock tyres are pretty dang good, for a more than usable set of spares at the least. Endless fun with all the shifting options. I own an axial SCX 10 iii which is great but this is definitely the next level in terms of quality and performance.
Excellent kit. I’ve got some other brands that are great, but this kit is one of the best I’ve built. I didn’t notice the issues that everyone else has problems with. Take you’re time with this one, you’ll appreciate the quality! With performance, I was impressed for a relatively stock kit with no upgrades on the chassis. I only did tires and wheels, love it!
The chassis is excellent, but you need to find the manual on Vanquish’s website for correct instructions.
You will need to stretch the shock collars by placing a needle nose pliers inside each collar and pulling the sides apart to get the collars to thread onto the shock bodies.
Plan on spending more time on this kit, be patient and you will get results.
2024 build. No issues found in the assembly steps.
This is such a good kit to build. High quality parts. Just plain fun. I added the aluminum bearing plates inside the tranny and also the aluminum spacer posts on top of the tranny.
The past year I have been going through builds that use carbon fiber for the chassis rails. While those builds are cool to complete and all that...there was something calming and satisfying about putting together a kit that is so complete and quality. There was no waiting around for weeks and weeks for parts to arrive and hope they'd fit. With the Phoenix kit, everything is included except for the electrical stuff. I seriously enjoyed the process.
Kit is amazing and goes together great as long as you have some knowledge of how all this stuff works. 1 thing to note though, I put a hobbywing fusion se 1800kv in this and it's unbelievably smooth for crawling and still has great wheel speed when needed but the stock gears in the trin trans are not the best and I managed to kill the gears on the first day on the rocks, moved to the machined gears and I think that will fix that slight weak point. Other than that it's an epic kit to build!
Excellent product. Is one of the best crawlers y have.
Such an awesome kit I bought 2, very detailed and a definite cost savings as you bring your own electronics, so no cheap RTR stuff to chuck in the garbage. And you get the intimate knowledge of your rig, having put it together yourself.
P.S. I really want to just say it’s a awesome kit, but I had to leave a 50+ character review.
just finished building the kit and loved every minute of it
Complete headache. I have a lot of experience with rc airplane kits, helicopters, boats, TLR 8ight XE-Elite, Traxxas 2021 Bronco and High Trail K10, buggies, on road and off-road cars, Kratons EXB, and many others through the years, but this has been the most difficult kit to assemble. Instruction manual only has illustrations, no explanations of any kind. Nevertheless, the parts quality, the fitment and details are superb. Once finished you know it's a tough crawler or trail runner. No comparison to it. YouTube assistance was a must . To me, it has a very minimalist look with a very, very complex assembly and functionality.
Great kit. Absolutely love building it . The instructions were precise and made building it a breeze. Look great and is very capable.
I finally finished the build. To many thing to say
1. Is a Trx4 killer well yes, why you buy this kit from Vanquish like my self for $400 with shipping can rise $450. Not bad. Have 2 thing even Axial is bad, dig and overdrive for free, even if you need to buy the servos the price is still lower. The dig from Axial can cost you $40 even more if your desperate to have on the Basecamp. That a rip. The Trx4 don't have dig, but you need to spend $80 to buy the axles diff to make overdrive front and underwrite rear.
2. The rig took me 16 hour to finish I like details. Good thing the stickers are pre-cut that save 2 hours of cutting. Only the transmission took me 2.5 hours and you need to be careful to looks the manual you can miss something.
3. The YouTuber Exocage say the shocks letf to much to desire. Well for me not happen. When you take out the parts you need to trim the excess of the part left for strip the part from the mold, that way you can have no problem with the shocks, for they are smooth. I use 55 wt is stable. Something Exocage mentioned the transmission have click sound, I think he made a mistake mine is not making that sound, the only sound I hear more often is the tires is because of the overdrive.
Can I recommend this rig well yes, but you need to take in consideration the parts are from minor aftermarket and are expensive. You need to take in consideration that aspects but you will not regrets if you are experienced enough. Before I forget the system I'm using is Hobbywing 1080 G2 with 555 13t brush motor combo. The motor fit not thither but is from 1.5 mm away and 3660 can fit but is the same 555.
Hi all thanks for your super fast delivery for USA to UK
The kit looks great can’t wait to get started.
Many thanks Rocky.
