Educate me about ScaleAuto

[Bal r 14]

I have one ScaleAuto car I bought used. In general, I was impressed by the overall quality and adjustability. They also get high marks from the experienced slot car racers. There are some things I didn't like... plastic front wheels, plastic gears and the guide assembly. But, I always replace the guide with the Sloting Plus universal guide, I may replace gears and I can live with the plastic wheels. I am always looking for a new brand to buy, because the selection offered by the current brands I like is very limited. So, I have been looking at websites that sell ScaleAuto and it's kind of confusing.

They have what appears to be multiple product lines with different quality. Some say nothing, some say Home Series and some have an R designation, but that even has versions (R, R1.7, R2). It appears the R versions are better than others, but it is hard to tell by the information given. There is also a considerable range in dates for when these cars were produced, from 2010 to current. Generally, newer dates have improvements over older dates, but that isn't always true (Sideways is a good example). Can somebody explain all of this to me?

[Michael Squier]

They have a pretty good web site. The parts section shows the different chassis and options, maybe this will help you.
https://scaleauto-slot.com/1-32-spare-parts/

[Bal r 14]

Thanks. I didn't think of looking at spare parts.

[Mikeinclover]

Basically the version of their cars are the race version. The non R cars are basically a Fly or Scalextric car, the R version have aluminum wheels in the rear isolated motorpods and set screw gear and better axles like you would find I'm a Slot it or NSR and Thunderslot.
Mike

[Bal r 14]

That clarifies a lot. So, I will stick to the R series cars.

[Kevan]

The Home Series is their basic range, I have a Home Series Pantera Rally car, it's the best Standard Class Rally car I've ever driven. Our Standard rules are for non podded chassis with plastic wheels, we're allowed to change tyres and add ballast and that's about it...but the plastic geared SW setup is NOISY!

[Dogsbody]

Their 1/24 cars are brilliant.

[Pepsi 62]

Home series are one piece chassis in SW config, plastic gears 20K motor
R series have AW pod with 20K long can, alloy gears, rear wheels are alloy fronts plastic, some of the "Cup series" cars come with a medium grey chassis setup and a spare hard black chassis,
they have a new RS series just released with alloy front wheels and bigger 22K?? motor

[Wobble]

And some of their Home series cars go like stink if you know how to set them up properly. They will leave a Scalextric or Carrera car in their dust and can foot it with the big boys on a smaller track..

[Kevan]

^

[Bal r 14]

I wish the dealers did a better job of listing the specs for the cars they sell. Wheel type, adjustable front end, pod or no pod, gears, motor orientation and motor specs make a lot of difference. They do this for some models, now. Some dealers also list when the car was added to their catalog, which I like.

[Kevan]

I always google>images to check.

[Bal r 14]

I do, too. I also check for YouTube reviews. The problem is if you can't tie the age of the images and reviews to the age of when the model was released, you can't tell if it has undergone significant changes that you don't see. For example, I always look for the older Sideways cars. They have a much nicer chassis for tuning to run silicone tires and better bodies than the new models do. At least, it seems that way from what info I can find about model age.

[ALS]

I have a few Carrera car that are fast 917k silly tires few Tweeks to the chassis. 904 same tuning