RC Hobby Shop — Attraction in Houston

Advertised and touted as being Houston's largest RC shop, if you go into this shop, expect to be disappointed. If I didn't know better, I'd think the store was selling off inventory and going out of business. It's an RC shop in Texas, but not one Traxxas vehicle is for sale. It's an RC shop for both nitro-powered and electric cars and trucks, but there are few batteries and no nitro fuel available, there hasn't been for some time, and no one seems to know when more is coming in.

They use the excuses of a busy Christmas season and winter storms in the north and Midwest as reasons for having no stock, but encourage customers to order from them. What gives? It's either available, or it's not. If I can order it from you and expect to get it, why can't you have it in stock? If I come into a store, it's because I want to swipe my card or pay in cash and take something home then. I don't want to wait a week or a month for an order that "might come in soon." If I wanted to order and wait, I could do that online at a cheaper price.

They advertise having rental vehicles available to run on their tracks, but no vehicles ever seem to be available. They do have free tracks to use, but they seem to do little to no maintenance on the tracks. They're overgrown with weeds and difficult to use.

The owner never seems to be there. The guy who everyone seems to think is the owner is gruff and difficult, and often gives off the attitude that he can't be bothered helping customers. He'd rather watch YouTube videos on the register computers and brag about his RC planes. Some of the other staff seem to be knowledgeable, pleasant, and helpful, but like something else, attitude flows downhill. If the owner doesn't work, doesn't stock the store, and doesn't seem to care, why should the staff?

This is a business that is wounded and seems to be dying a slow death. They like to blame their woes on the ongoing Brand Ln construction project, but it would seem to me that in order to get people to brave the construction and come to the store, you need to give them a reason to come, not make up excuses why you have nothing. Someone needs to do the right thing and put this critically-wounded business out...

I spend thousands with Amain hobbies & Amazon now instead. Matt is a cool dude. He always asked my name when he saw me there alot spending money. Diego is my favorite. It was a busy day the assistant mananger, forgot his name (tall dude that installed 5g towers as his previous job) sold me the slash. When I needed tires that day he pointed to the ones I needed from behind the counter. I grabbed them, went home it was the wrong tires (for nitro) Came back and Matt wasn't there so Diego wanted to exchange or take them back since I was there alot. He used to show me his XMAXX builds. Diego asked the manager & his EGO kicked in saying "I picked the wrong tires" and no refunds. I bought 10 tires from Amain Hobbies 4 of them didn't fit due traxxas OEM mods (metal steering block on the MAXX) guess what Amain hobbies did? Refunded me $130, gave me store credit for my trouble & gave me return label to take it back. I spend thousands online now. Just bought the new MAXX SLASH & didn't bother going here. It is a great store otherwise with lots of parts. I bought my MAXX & SLASH 4x4 VXL + $700 in parts for both cars including batteries, charger, wide arm kits etc from here. I just wished that day I was taken care of by simply an exchange of the correct tires instead the assitant managers ego wouldn't let him and he blamed me when he pointed at which ones I needed to grab. They lost me over a $25 set of tires, which is just embarrassing while I spent $2,000+ here. Respect to Matt and Diego...

Went there to buy a cheap Latrax Teton for my kid. Store was packed. No social distancing, none of the staff wears masks or face covering. Sales staff was friendly and helpful though. Got home, charged the battery, gave the RC to the kiddo, within a minute he came to me complaining the RC is making weird noises and being slow. Inspected the car and for sure it sounded like it is grinding gears. Went back to the store the next day, told the staff what happened. The female staff at the counter is helpful. She asked another staff to help diagnose the issue. This person’s pretty much insinuate that I lied about the car has problem right out of the box, and the attitude is that I should not be bothering him. Note that I did not ask for refunds or returns, instead, I just want to fix the less than one day old RC car. Ultimately, the issue was determined to be dirt stuck in the diff, and this person did fix it. But the whole experience is off putting. I am planning to spend some money to get a high end RC car for myself, and was planning on spending it on locally owned business. But after this experience, I don’t think I’ll spend...