Motley Crew Back ordered

[LordNegaDuck]

I've been trying to order this boat since late August and now its not going to be available til Dec. 9

the last time i ordered something that took this long ended up being discontinued so i got to ask
Is this boat being discontinued, getting turned into Team AMSOIL, or does it take that long to build them?????

[siberianhusky]

Maybe they will be making the hulls a bit stronger! Would be a killer boat then!
LOL anything would be an improvement on the current graphics.

[tlandauer]

I was thinking the same thing, it will be discontinued ! Samething happened to me once also. They never annouce any corp. decisions. Horizon does the samething, a few boats just dissappeared, I was looking for an old brushed version of the Shockwave26 RS, it is gone. Wanted to make another rescue boat out of it after making one out of a Rio EP.
Siberianhusky: how bad really is the hull? I placed an order from Tower Hobbies in the hopes that they will come in December but I am concerned about the durability of the hull. I got a bare UL-1 hull from a member here and he told me it is of a more recent production, haven't experienced any problem yet! Are theses hulls similar in the way how they are built?
Thanks

[LordNegaDuck]

i just wish i can find a straight answer so i know if i will need to go get my money back from the hobby shop i pre-ordered it from and maybe get something that "isn't" back ordered

[tlandauer]

I pre-ordered mine at Tower Hobbies and one good thing about them is that they won't charge you until the item is in stock. Nevertheless, my hopes are low that they will resume producing this cat. I think it is a cost issue. The targeted price for this boat must not be yielding enough of a margin of profit. I regret that I didn't buy it in the first place, at the time i thought the production run would be much longer. After having run the UL-1 I began to like the "tub" design. Well, best luck to both of us! Cheers!

[siberianhusky]

IMO anything above a prop change on the stock motor will end up going fast enough to damage the hull in a crash.
Too bad you can't hold one before you buy, most people ask me if it's a plastic hull, they can't believe that fiberglass could be so thin!
Great design, just typical cheap chinese construction. I think the hull is just one layer of glass over a very thin white gel coat. When I fixed the bottom of the sponsons I added material to square them up because I honestly thought I was going to sand right through the sponson bottoms trying to get the dips and bulges out of them!
Tons of fun for a spec boat and will stand up to that fairly well, just not a hull to go in search of speed with.
The Geico and Mystic have a great track record of being durable enough to handle some good upgrades and speeds. Also much better finish on the hulls. the Proboat hulls are near perfect, I compared my Crew to a Geico side by side and it looked like my Crew was filled, sanded and painted by a chimp on crack!
I think Aquacraft is at the lower end of hull quality for RTR boats, everything they have released in the past few years has had hull problems going back to the original SV cracking, UL-i turn fin and hull splitting issues and now the Crew with a weak hull. My VS1 which is a wooden tunnel is a damn good and well built boat for OPC tunnel racing.

[midnightsabotage]

If you're really set of getting a Motley Crew, there was a new one sitting on display at my LHS recently.. I think. They also had a Miss Geico recently, but I can't recall which one was still there. They may be willing to ship to you if you call them (if they still have it).

Might be worth a shot. Just tell them someone you talked to online said they think they saw one in the store recently & see if they can process an order over the phone & ship. Who knows.

You wont get any coupon codes or free shipping like with Tower, but if you really want it, this could be a way.

Hub Hobby Center
Little Canada, MN
(651)490-1675

HOURS:
Mon - Fri: 10:00am to 9:00pm
Sat: 9:30am to 5:30pm
Sun: Noon to 5:00pm

[T.S.Davis]

Oh come on. We've got 4 Motley, 3 Geico, and a Mystic that race together on our pond all the time.

The Geico canopy will explode if you stuff it just right. That's on spec power. The bottom on mine looked like it was beat with a bag of nickles. Yep sanded right through and had to glass inside to make it usable.

I'm not saying the AQ stuff is great either but neither is head and shoulders above the other. There both great limited spec boats.

All of the RTR boats are price point offerings. With that comes inherent problems. The worst of which in my opinion is quality control out of China. You could get two of the same boats built in different months and see different levels of quality from either manufacturer. China is a weird bird. They've been know to change things without approval from the client. You could end up with a container full of not quite what you thought you were getting.

I don't know what the deal is with the Motley back orders.

[G-UNIT]

Try calling Graves hobby in orlando fl I think they have one.

[Doby]

Tons of fun for a spec boat and will stand up to that fairly well, just not a hull to go in search of speed with.
.

As its designed as a 4S "spec boat" (and the associated speeds) if you go in search of greater speed then you live with the consequenses.

[tlandauer]

I just noticed Tower changed their dates from Dec. to Late Nov. Don't know what ultimately this means. Thanks for all your info. Since I already pre-ordered there, I will try my luck by waiting out and see what happens. One thought: If the UL-1 hull is any similar to the MC then I definitely have a recent batch because that hull is quite rigid and thick. I saw a picture in the review from RC Universe? where the alignment of the motor shaft to the flex cable is really atrocious! My UL-1 is not great but the seller had tried to bend/twist the motor mount bracket, it helped somewhat, the picure is another story, no amount of correction will help unless a major correction is done, is this a common problem?

[Stinger9D9]

I managed to pick up an MC back in June (the last of the one www.greathobbies.com had in stock).

If anyone in the north Toronto area wants one, there's one hobby shop www.rcsports.ca up in Woodbridge that has had a new one on the shelf all summer long. They also have a couple M445s on the rack right below it, and some AQ 42x55 props too. I don't know the price on the boat though (no tag).

[LordNegaDuck]

great now its back ordered till 01/01/12

[midnightsabotage]

last week i was at the hobby shop that i listed above and the Motley Crew is still sitting there.

[LordNegaDuck]

i want to buy local and support the hobby shops here but then again if its pushed back again i will hunt one down else where

[Stinger9D9]

i want to buy local and support the hobby shops here but then again if its pushed back again i will hunt one down else where

Just checked Tower Hobbies - it still says "Late Dec" as the availability date. It's the 29th today, how much later is there?

Have they even shipped any of these since the initial batch in May 2011? Luckily I got one at that time, but this much delay in getting any more to market is getting silly.

I like my MC, but if I had to wait this long, I would have bought the ProBoat Mystic long ago.

[Grimracer]

Boats started shipping again this week..

Its kind of a catch 22.. the consumer experience and reads quality issues that need addressing..
The MFG addresses these concerns
This takes time

Truth is we could have shipped boats "anyway" (boats come out fast) but felt it best to "meet your concerns" (boats take time)

To me.. Quality wins every time.. (thats not as easy as you might think).. Simple word.. complicated path.

To those waiting.. Thanks for hanging tight!

ROCKET AND ROLL and Happy New Year from the gang here at AquaCraft!

Grimracer

[LordNegaDuck]

WooHOO I'm getting my boat soon. Thank you for letting me know grim :D

[tlandauer]

At least I am happy that AC is addressing the quality issues, I am kind of glad that I waited this long. I placed my order with Towerhobbies a few months ago and l cant wait to get mine!

[siberianhusky]

Thats great news as it is a very fun boat and runs great with a stock setup.

[Steven Vaccaro]

I got work my 10 are on their way to me! Yahoo!!

[gzee]

can you let us know if AQ tok care of all the problems?

[longballlumber]

can you let us know if AQ tok care of all the problems?

The only issue I know of is they had some random issues with flex cables. Sounds like they addressed some quality concerns in this most recent batch.

Later,
Mike

[LordNegaDuck]

well i got my one today

[tlandauer]

Get a load of this: restock date at Tower has been pushed back to mid March!! Dang!!

[tlandauer]

WooHOO, Tower informed me my Motley Crew is coming my way!