HPI Savage 25 Review

Overall Rating

Really really tough!!!!
Fully modifiable
Fast and Fun
Great off road
Great for jumps

Can be expensive.
VERY noisy - make sure your neighbors don't mind or whoever is near you.
Quite unstable as it has a high center of gravity

Right, well, where to start. Over a year ago me and a friend both bought HPI 25 Savage's and since then there's been the savage SS and savage X and savage 4.6 etc, The HPI Savage 25 is near the bottom of the range but you can fully upgrade and modify EVERY part and i mean EVERY!

I guess the main thing is its durability as most people buy an RC truck for jumps and fast off-roading and this has to be the most durable truck available. You can do 10 foot jumps and land on concrete upside down and you might scratch the shell a bit but thats it. Ok so my friend has taken it further jumping off a skate ramp and landing upside down on concrete from probably 5m up and that bent an upgraded 3mm roll bar but nothing else.

This truck is fast and is not for young children as 'toys'. They do require regular maintenance every time you use them as they are Nitro and have a engine. Stock they say the truck can do 38mph. Tuned properly I'd say this is pretty true. There's so much I could go into about this truck and Ok I will go into some more detail but really if you're considering buying one of these you should already know the basics about nitro RC cars otherwise I suggest looking elsewhere.

A few points now on the truck and some minor niggles. The worst being the access and lid to the receiver and battery compartment. It's said that this problem has been solved on later models but I can't confirm. Basically its really fiddly and annoying. The stock brakes do need upgrading, I bought the dual disk brake kit for about 15 quid and now it'll lock up all the wheels on tarmac and flip over on grass. You might also want to invest in a fuel tank guard which we did after a stick pierced the exposed fuel tank which meant my friend had to buy a new tank. Forgot to mention this early on but the first thing I bought before the truck arrived was a skid plate which goes under the truck to protect the majority of the underside - disk brakes, drive train and everything else you can see from underneath the truck. In my opinion this is a must to protect everything but it also provides the truck with protection from side forces which the twin vertical chassis don't ( but the vertical chassis is what makes it so strong at withstanding hard landings )

What else have we got, maybe a more minor point that I considered later was overheating, if you push your truck hard you're gonna overheat it, so I put a larger heat sink on along with a temperature gauge with overheating failsafe and out of range failsafe which stops your truck if it goes out of range rather than plowing on into a tree etc.

Another thing is, get an exhaust stub - this just extends the exhaust exit further away and closer to the ground, they cost about 3 quid and it stops all the oil that spits out of the exhaust from going all over 1 side of your truck which is a real pain as you can imagine especially if you then go on dusty tracks and it all sticks together and makes a big mess, not fun!

If you don't align your spur gear with the engines clutch gear, the spur gear made from plastic will just shred and you will need another one, don't be tempted to buy a steel spur gear as this will just make more damage and expense if you don't align it properly again. If you align them correctly and tighten them enough with locktight (thats another thing you need - locktight) a plastic spur is all you need.

This truck WILL roll if you're not careful, it is VERY easy to roll on pretty much ALL surfaces so just watch out for that.

Make sure you run this truck I properly - read the instructions and if I remember correctly from over a year ago I think you have to put 2 tanks of fuel through just idling pretty much and then on the next few tanks drive it very gently, as I said you should already know the basics about nitro rc cars if you're considering one of these.

Finally I think I'll end it here as it's getting to be quite a long review, lol, I paid 300 quid for my stock savage over a year ago, and obviously they are much cheaper now and there are better ones out but make sure you don't spend all your budget on a stock rc car, whatever it is, because you will most likely need spares and want to upgrade it etc. If you're looking for parts or upgrades all I can say is i got most of mine from ebay but there are many other sites around and model shops dotted everywhere.