Chicco Child's First Remote Control Car Review

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(More customer reviews)I was concerned about all the poor reviews of this remote controlled car, but encouraged by the positive review by the remote controlled car enthusiast. I was sure my 2-year-old son would love it if it worked, so I took a chance on it.
Before Christmas, I removed it from the box, put new batteries in it, and made sure it worked. It seemed to run fine, even on carpet. I only did a few very brief test mini runs.
Christmas morning, my son liked it even before he realized what it did. When we showed him that the remote made it run, his eyes glowed. He loves buttons and is always trying to make our TV do things with its remote, so he dived right in, running it back and forth.
But soon, after much less than a minute, it became sluggish. We could hear the motor racing, but the car barely moved. I took it to a linoleum floor, which was a slight improvement, but it still barely worked forward and back, and came to a stop if turned in either direction.
I had originally put in Energizer batteries. The next day I got some Duracell Ultras and tried them. It was just as sluggish with the Duracell Ultras.
I took the car apart to see what I could do. Taking it apart wasn't easy. The rear wheels and axle needed to come out to get access to the gearbox, but the inner blue fenders trap the rear wheels in. I couldn't get the rear wheels to pull off of the axle. I found some screws to remove on one of the weels, but removing those screws didn't help. Finally I took a hacksaw and cut down one of the inner blue fenders to allow that wheel to slip off.
From there, I finished removing the wheel from the axle to get access to the gearbox lid, then removed the gearbox lid. I found that there was a plastic gear mounted on the metal axle like a doughnut on a spindle, and on most of the axle there was hardly any friction between the axle and the gear, so that the axle was easy to stop when the motor was spinning the gear. But one small section of the axle had been scored with cross-hatched grooves. When I moved the gear over that section, there was much more friction, and stopping the axle brought the motor to a stop too.
I repositioned the axle and gearbox in their normal place on the car to position the gear on the axle in it's normal place. Then I carefully removed it to see where the grooved part of the axle was compared to the gear. If you haven't guessed already, the grooved part was in the wrong place! It only partly fit under the gear. It needed more grooves further away from the end of the axle.
I tried putting marks in the axle with my biggest pair of pliers, but the axle metal was too hard. Then I tried roughing up the metal with a file. That helped but it still wasn't as good as when I positioned the gear exactly over the grooves.
I held the file steady and put some deep grooves all around the axle, then turned the axle around and put in more deep grooves in the opposite direction, making crosshatched grooves. I tested it again, and this time it had even more friction than the original grooves.
I put it all back together and it works perfectly, even on carpet.
Some hints if you're going to try this yourself:
-- You'll need some very small, slender phillips screwdrivers. I used a precision set.
-- To get the wheel off of the axle, pull and twist at the same time.
-- Remember to screw the lid back onto the gearbox before putting the wheel back on.
-- Make a note of where the antenna attaches to the chassis. Mine broke off while I was working and I had to figure out where to reattach it. But I think I must have guessed wrong, because I don't seem to have much range. If anyone can tell me where it goes, I would appreciate it.
If you're willing to do all that, this toy easily rates a 5 once fixed.


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