Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)My 5 year old received this for Christmas. He nearly jumped out of his skin when we finally go it set up and running. But there's more to this story.
The first set we got had a WRONG curved track piece, which prevented me from setting it up Christmas day. To MATTEL's credit I called their 800 number and they immediately shipped a complete set replacement. ( I'm now a customer for life, kudos MATTEL, etc...) A week or so later, we received a full replacement set at no cost, without sending back the original. No slam against Mattel since their no-hassle replacement policy is awesome, **BUT** the replacement set was also missing a piece! ( a straight track was absent this time) Fortunately, between the two sets, I had enough pieces to set it up, and for 19.95, it was still a good deal. Just wish their Chinese factories had better quality control.
My two son's (5 and 2 1/2) were in rapture for the first 30 minutes. As advertised, it only works with the some Hot Wheels vehicles. The sleeker and lighter the toy car, the better. The motor accelerates cars so fast, you can't see them. We got about 3 cars on a track before they started to crash or pile up, which is part of the fun. The two sets together gave us two race cars, two motors, and enough tracks to build a good sized set.
Summary:
* Mattel's replacement policy is GREAT. No returns required in my case so I ended up with slightly less than two full sets.
* If you're not on a strict time line for a birthday/holiday, and you're ok with Mattel's week long, no-hassle replacement experience, I strongly recommend you get this starter set.
If you're looking for a better gift for the 3-5 age group with more re-playability, I recommend wooden train sets.
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Hot Wheels Starter Set
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