It still blows my mind that Tamiya makes such great looking bodies, but then you have four body posts sticking through it. They really need to get with it and come up with a clipless body mounts for all of their RCs. Love the channel, Gav!

That is one hard kit to defend. Good luck going straight.

I've built enough Tamiya's in 30 years to know slop is just something you have to deal with. I suppose its ok on the first 100, but not with modern releases and molding technology today.

You're a more patient man than I, Gav. Lol! The slop of the BT-01 is a mountain I wasn't willing to climb, haha. Best of luck getting it all sorted pal. Hopefully you can dial it in nicely and help Tamiya save face on this release.

As a calibra lover, they weren't all 2wd. The turbo was 4WD until the transfer box died.

Are Tamiyas still made in Japan? There’s no way they should be releasing a chassis with that much slop. There’s tolerances and there’s tolerances! I’ve not built mine yet… cheers for the cheat codes 😊

"Total Sloppy Mess" I was thinking Gav had documented a night out on the pull...... On a serious note, you absolutely were not too harsh! That thing is not even toy grade, and £160 to boot! How much time & money are they expecting us to invest to make it a quality chassis? On the plus side, sales of M5 washers have boomed.

And people complained on the old TL01. Compared to this the TL01 is way better!

I'm sure we have a saying for that! "Jack of all trades master of none" 😂

The BT-01's little "brother" MB-01 got the same issues. A lot of slop that needs a lot of shims. The steering is a pain in the back, as it binds a lot under the body tower assembly thing. Getting it to run straight takes a lot of effort.

Hi Gavin. Totally agree with you. Tamiya need to up there game, instead of relying on the brand. 🤐

Thank the RC lords Tower Hobbies took forever to mark my order as shipped, after watching all the videos from guys like you, I just went ahead and canceled it. Lol.

No totally agree with you on the Quality should be a lot better for the price thanks for this great video too buddy 👍

Hopefully the new XM-01 chassis makes up for this one. It looks really promising and a suitable home for all those M bodies!

Not harsh at all. It looks like an over complicated TT02. Look at the BBX or the M07. Tamiya can do so much better. There is less slop in my Grasshopper

The multi-purpose chassis molding would save a small amount of money in reducing the tooling cost. The longer production runs for each molding reduce the setup-time in the factory as well. Overall the benefit is a cost saving for the Tamiya factory, but result in inferior product in the hands of the consumer.

Absolutely awful for a 2024 car, ball bearings and oil filled shocks are a must

Tamiya can make REALLY good chassis if they want to. But these toy grade chassis are just hurting their reputation.

I’d like to stick up for the BT01 a little bit, yes there’s a lot of slop and if we’re being honest it’s too much slop and I definitely agree friction shocks should be banned from Tamiya kits ;) however to fight its corner once I’d built mine and I even took it racing against tt02s and 01s it held its own rather well , mine was in mm configuration as the kit. I had no issues with it not tracking straight and it handled nicely with a set of racing tyres on our carpet track, how ever I did swap to oil shocks for a better drive. It’s a fun kit with plenty of options but it’s not perfect. I would say we are Brits and we like a good old whinge as well 😜

I don't think you are being harsh at all Gavin. Tamiya has been dropping the ball far too much lately and for that price point... NOT acceptable! Great video as always.

The problem with your shims for the axles is that their outer diameter is bigger than the inner part of the bearing (the actual moving part). You should replace them with smaller ones that match the diameter of the inner parts of the bearings or the bearings will grind on the shim.

Good review Gavin! Thank you for being honest. It is a terrible chassis out of the box. It's nothing more than a toy.

This is terrible news. This BT-01 chassis IMO needed to succeed. Were sick of getting cool bodies on TT-02s, and this was the answer, and its arguable worse! Bushings and friction shocks in 2024 is a joke and I genuinely worry about Tamiya’s future considering how good “BangGood/AliExpress” stuff is these days. I built a new old stock TA04 over Christmas which is what 20 years old? And its considerably better than most of Tamiya’s recent stuff :/

I like that you can swap it from FWD to RWD etc but it adds to the slop. IMO they should have released separate kits for each variation of them

It's the TT-02 all over again. Wait for the BT-01 RRR-R X for a car that tracks :p

Yes, Tamiya could do better in a lot of their kits. But then they can't sell you option parts for more than you paid for the kit. They already know this.

Thank you for being positive about the new chassis. Some other reviewers are too negative. I paid for mine and it didn’t take much much to make 99.9% slop free. I started mine with ball bearings, oil filled shocks and 2 packs of tamiya metal pivot balls( not eBay specials as another reviewer used). I used shims at the locations that you have shown in the axles and suspension arms. Do not forgot the steering mechanism (it moves up and down). That was very important to eliminate slop. As you mentioned the tamiya ball ends should be replaced with more precise ball ends(again, not cheap eBay junk as another reviewer used). Thank you again for being so positive and of course being honest in the short comings of the car, but showing that it can have potential

I can see a BT-01”R” coming in the fall or the holidays that addresses the slop issues 🤷🏻‍♂️

You can understand slop on older/cheaper cars, but not on a modern vehicle with today's technology.

As a retired Australian rc driver of 40 years experience I think you are being a bit hard on a new player in the market. This is their first plastic model they have never made an rc car before . I watched an advertisement 40 plus years ago. Quote “ first in quality around the world “

I also agree that tamiya could do better, with their years of model building and designing expertise, can't make a more precise vehicle, also, oil shock wouldn't break their bank at all

The toy rc truck I got at target for my little nephew has less slop and cost $50

Not being too harsh. Tamiya could/should up their game so us fans can enjoy an updated model that we enjoyed years ago

I agree with the confusing manual. I've built at least 100 Tamiya, and this one stumped me for a good hour before I could work out how to change it from MR as the manual wants to FR as I want.

Thanks for that info gav I was thinking of trying to do one of these but I'll give it a miss some people don't like the tt02 but I've done a few and really enjoy them so might do the supra tt02 instead great video can't wait to see the finished product look forward to the next one and love the hoody

I honestly think with this and the other chassis with the configurable wheelbase Tamiya is making them for more modelers.

For the steering links slop, I find that 54869 long or 54868 medium open face adjusters fit the ball connectors way better than any previous adjusters from Tamiya,including the kit supplied parts. Like the TT01/02 arms that use the pillow ball setup , it seems the upright should be a tad shorter so the ball with the split in it can expand when tightend by the screw that holds it in place.Bit of a fiddle to be sure,in setting it correctly.

I've watched a lot of videos about this car, now I see why it's undriveable. All that slop is unacceptable and it still blows my mind that Tamiya still put friction shocks and bushings on their models while almost everyone else has stopped

Tamiya your kits need to have hydrokinetic shocks not Pogo sticks. 🤔

Hey mate! The rear slop causing toe in under power i fixed by adding a tt-02 unishaft which is slightly longer which helps keep it toe'd in aswel as bottom metal friction balls. Im also running a 4wd setup which is 100% better than any setup from standard. The suspension i added oil filled shocks which help alot and a tt02 shim kit. Good luck with the slop! I really hated this car but its really grown on me with abit of hop ups. one thing that really annoyed me was the fact theres only 3 gearing setups :(

Tamiya, do better. I am looking forward to seeing the completed car.

I've given up on tamiya after the new m series . The bbx is great. But when I see this kit, same as the m series, I saved my money. I now build scale trucks . More satisfying

To be honest, Tamiya has been pumping out sub par kits for a while now while re-re-re-releasing old kits to cash in on nostalgia sales… Also like you said, and I also believe, that it’s quite unlikely people will go through the hassle of reconfiguring the chassis once they’ve built it one way or the other. The fwd class is gaining popularity in recent times, as far as I know, there’s no rwd class really besides the rwd m06/8 in the m-chassis/mtc class, everything else is 4wd. So this ‘reconfigurable’ fwd/rwd(awd?) chassis has pretty much no valid reason to exist really… Sure you could say “it does it all”, yes but quite badly and unnecessarily cumbersome and complicated… I’d advise people to just get a chassis that specifically does either fwd, rwd or awd, but not one that could do it all. Plus it makes for a good excuse to buy more r/c cars right? 😅😋

I think Tamiya needs a wake up call overall. The whole not including bearings thing they need to know that we’d much rather pay $50 more to get bearings and oil shocks. Heck basic cva’s likely don’t cost much more than the friction ones to build. The tolerances are unforgivable. Just say it like it is. They’ve been making silly mistakes lately

I say your review is fair and honest Tamiya has step off there game with this chassis conpair to bbx chassis which has a cracking good one Disliking Tamiya new age plastic ball top pivot joints same use on the new mini chassis too Tamiya main selling point is the licence brand body

@rckicks I’m sure the Vauxhall Calibra Turbo 4x4 I had was four wheel drive🤔😆

Kits like this just re inforce my opinion that Tamiya has rapidly become the King of shelf Queens , good looking cars that do not measure up against other brands when it comes to any sort of road use , after so many years of production so much slop even in an entry level kit really is not acceptable .

The Calibra's were not all FWD productioncars, they also made the Calibra Turbo, which was factory 4wd.

There’s a saying that springs to mind, jack of all trades , master of none 😮😊

Ah. Now I remember why I stopped buying Tamiya and went Kyosho, Yokomo, and Associated instead.

Yes it is a sloppy jaloppy out of the box, I have shimmed up all the spots you pointed out and have some different ball cups and balls to reduce the toe slop. But yeah really Tamiya should have done better, I had to get it as being a Aussie I grew up with Front engine Rear wheel drive cars and have always wanted a RC chassis like that! However this was not how I thought it would be. I have been running mine a bit now and having the rear wheel drive is fun, with a bit of setup work and oil shocks (I have been into RC and racing from the mid 80's) it handles OK and does what I want it to do. I feel this is possibly the replacement for the TT-02 as most of those bodies are rear wheel drive but the build was very challenging, I did mine FR out of the box and it was not fun, Just build it as the instruction say then change it. It is also a pain to work on and clean, The TT-02 is a much easier chassis to work on.

Yeah, thanks for the honest review. I will pass unless they release a FF body with it that I would like (Honda Integra, Peugeot 306 Rally, Renault Clio Williams, for example)

The Opel Calibra V6 DTM was an 4x4 not an FWD

I bet there'll still be apologists insisting it's just Tamiya being 'quirky'.

WOW

Just leave the Supra body clear. The winner can paint it themselves. I would paint it some hypershift color, suits the Supra really well.

Imagine the disappoint of building this kit driving it, if anyone looking at buying this kit hadn't watched your video 😅.

i'll possibly save you some money, the metal suspention ball's will do nothing for you (atleast in terms of slop reduction), if you want to tighten it up, take out the screw, pop it appart and take a flat file and shorten the peg untill the suspention ball's edge is poking out when put back in place. for me this worked wonders on the rear....front is better but not as good as the rear...still figuring out why might need to file it down a bit more. other then that the connecting pieces for the ball ends are indeed a major slop contributer, i found some from a TT-02 upgrade kit measured the hole on them 4.1mm, BT-01 stock is 4.3mm so now trying to figure out what that tighter connector is sold under (the number on the tree pointed to a TA-04 which...is not helpfull). and on mine atleast the steering ...."unit" was not fine, where the ball bearings/bushings go i added a 0.2mm washer to the bottom to stabilize it (it was rocking back and forth) and the kingpins also rock back and forth but for me putting these in destroyed the screw pretty much, was able to take them out and am now waiting for low fricking kingpints mainly for the hex so i can shim that as well. my theory is they hope people like this so they can offer a BT-01 Type S with better ball end connectors and a bag of shims. and i tend to ace manual's i've never strugled with ikea furnature for example :P but damn did i have to quadruple check that i did things right... and then still use the 10mm pin where i shoulda used the 11.8mm pin >.>

Maybe if someone hasn't looked into it the use of some tt01 tt02 suspension parts the metal balls are a fit but what about the arms themselves. Tamiya has been known to redesign parts to fix issues or use existing parts to fix to fix issues. But let's wait on the 4wd version. I m sure there will be a fix.

I agree with what you've said here, Tamiya really need to up their game. I like the look of the BT-01 chassis, it's definitely different, but that much slop, bushings instead of bearings, and friction shocks on a kit of this price is taking the p***. Shame really, seriously puts me off the BT-01.....

Well let's not really worry about the issues now. Tamiya seems to fix the problems. That's how we Get the 02 version of any car Tamiya.

BT (Basic Trash) 01. Enough to put newbies off rc.

Tamiya have been doing this since the TT01 was parachuted onto the market. And it was fine at that point in time, but stacked up against other modern day level entry cars, its just poor form. It would take very little to re-engineer the offending parts in BT, TT and the MB, which I think Carl from Popalong discovered with his first few outlaps.

For me I like Tamiya but I only have one and not sure if I want more. The slop is an issue on my TT02. I have fixes it a bit but no bearing or good shocks and over priced hop ups, so on the fence about Tamiya and not sure which way to jump.

Tamiya deserves every bit of criticism on this one. This kit should never have been released with that slop.

Tamiya doesn't fix any problems once released

Yeah that things a hot mess that nobody asked for. They should've advanced the TT platform instead.

MST do a kit the TCR where you can have it FWD, MR or RR. It has open gears and springs in the hubs like an F1 rc car.

Thats all ive seen about this kit, slop slop sloppy lol. I think its shocking they even released it 😮

Stinker that one Gav!

good luck to get that sorted, both the mb-01 and the bt-01 are really verry bad, and the strategy selling a car with so frustratingly bad parts that you can sell a lot of hop ups and after nothing helps a new car to the same customer is really verry disappointing for the customer.

tamiya did improve 30% ... on the production costs... 🤑

Hi Gavin just thinking do you have tamiya race truck wheels for the Euro race trucks and will they fit on the BT-01.😎😎😎

Slop will be a huge Issue the faster you go. It's not just Tamiya that has this issue. I've found a few high end manufacturers that release RTR's that have slop. My XRT has end float in the hubs. Took quite a lot of shimming to dial that out. In the end the truck is much nicer to drive and is more precise in it's handling. Something you want when an RC is approaching 100kph. Surprisingly Arrma cars are pretty damn good out of the box. This shouldn't be happening at all. Hub ball joints should be tight. I've seen well used RC's with less slop in them than this kit. A real shame. It's all good for us seasoned RC'ers to shim all of this out but what if it's your first kit?

I'LL STICK WITH MY TT02 REAR WHEEL DRIVE ALPHA ROMEO ALL DAY FUN...I WON THE MY VERY FIRST RC RACE WITH THAT CAR

But how does it drive with all the slop verses your fixes on it? You should build 2 cars, one fixed and one bone stock and record them side by side.

I woould have expected a better quality and design from this car, considering right now a tt01e and tt02 are basically the best 1/10 tamiya starter and , at least in my country, u can get a tt02r for 113 euro and a tt02 with no electronic and body for 54 euro. This car, for what is supposed to do, is ajust an expensice shelf queen. A stonger motor or even a brushless one may make the car go in every direction or tremble like crazy.

Im wondering if Tamiya are moving back to friction shocks for mass produced kits to keep restrictions at a minimum & be able to ship world wide easily & cheaper? Whenever i buy kits from Buyee, they remove any oils, as its restricted to ship internationally from Japan. So i wonder if Tamiya are removing oil to keep restrictions being placed 🤔 just a thought… but who knows with Tamiya. Great video Gav, love these series of builds

Got to agree love the concept of it but poor execution and definitely should come with oil shocks, maybe they will fix it with the BT-01 S/SR/concept ?

Calibra Turbo was 4x4

WTF !!!??????!!! When I think I was almost picking two of them for me and my brother !!!!! THANK YOU for showing us that !!! What a piece of crap and I’m sorry to say this Tamiya, sincerely !! What a cool concept, what a TERRIBLE realization.

I liked Tamiya for many years. The shapes off the body’s are excellent. But the last years they are living from rere to rere to rere. And the quality off new cars and parts availability is going downhill fast. So i went to Traxxas.

Seems like Tamiya is falling off the quality bandwagon with this one no Gavin you are not being too harsh Tamiya should’ve stepped up the game

That chassis is three steps back.

Tamiya have make some of the smoothest plastic body oil filled dampers I’ve ever seen for decades now it boggles the mind they are starting to use these friction pogo sticks now. I wasn’t impressed when I initially saw this chassis definitely a hard pass for me I’m used to a little slop with the more basic Tamiya platforms but this is pretty bad especially now

I would have the silver Cliff decals straight up on the supra and then gone with the yellow Opel race decals on a black Calibra

As Paul Calf would say, BT-01? Bag of Shite! Oh, and the Calibra Turbo road car was 4x4. So there.

The MB01 was sloppy also in all the same areas

I was really disappointed with the quality and slop when I built a TT-02 having built a TA-01 and TA-03F in the 90s. This looks even worse!

BUT YOU GET FREE ESC AND MOTOR...8 BBS AND A FEW SHIMS...SHE WILL RUN...

They want aftermarket to fix their kits. Yeah racing has made a bunch already

Tamiya should be ashamed now with bad construction/parts friction dampers and plastic bearings. There’s no room for second rate kit/parts and lack bearings proper suspension.

This is just a continuation of the rubbish they put out with the MB-01. 30+ years of playing with m-chassis cars and I couldnt get it to work properly.

Tamiya has become arrogant. I wouldn't buy any of their kits until I see ball bearings and oil dampers as standard on everything they make.

Terrible kit imo. I got one, half built in and then put it all in the bin. Taking up space with rubbish and a waste of money. Wasn’t overly impressed with the body so that went too 🤣 I also binned 4 fully boxed unused WlToys 2 brushless and 2 brushed that I brought just after lockdown (they were reviewed on the show). I was in a bad mood and wanted to free up the space so a nib Midnight Pumpkin an a few others went and will soon be in land fill 😂

Many yrs ago i owned a Tamiya grass hopper and then it had friction shocks and bushes for bearings, and now in 2024 nothing has changed with there products 👎, and yes that sloppy steering and terrible suspension spacing sucks i agree, Tamiya is losing it 👎

There is a video of it being converted to 4wd. I did the washer trick on the arms for the slop and it helps but still doesnt hide the fact this is an absolute dogs dinner of a kit.

Not too harsh, I've always find the amount of slop in some RCs to be completely off putting. I wouldn't want 1mm of play in my real car why would I want it in a 1/10 car? That would be the equivalent of 10mm of play in a real car!

I don't think you're being too harsh. Many reviewers have stated the same outcome. Too sloppy, won't track straight, won't hold trim and drive's terribly. This is really bad for a new kit. That along with the Tamiya standard plastic bearings, pogo stick fake shocks and you have a kit that is just not good enough for today's market. With cheapo rtr's coming standard with bearings, oil shocks metal drivetrains etc, this just is not good enough. I love my Tamiyas, but this kit just looks all bad. I won't be touching anything on this chassis ever. Tamiya seems to have an old time doctrine of a "detailed model that you can drive" rather than a rc car first, and model second. The body kits are amazing, but underneath, not so much. Too bad. Those old TT02 kits not looking so bad anymore eh? I know I'll be keeping mine as I've solved all their shortcomings and turned them into great drivers. cheers.

That is poor, shouldnt be like that with a new release Tamiya quality is slipping. Reminds me of a frog or brat front end they got loads if slop 😢