Technic 2H2019 Video Reviews

[Sariel]

It's this time of the year again... I'll be adding videos to the first post as they come.

42099 4x4 X-treme Off-roader:

42099 VS 9398:

42098 Car Transporter

42097 Spider Crane (ok, Compact Crawler Crane officially :P )

 

Edited August 2, 2019 by Sariel

[Jim]

Thanks! 

Looks like a cool set. Will probably sell big time.

[kolbjha]

Thanks for your excellent review of 42098, as always! My son has never been so excited about a set before, especially when he saw that it was compatible with his Corvette.

[Maaboo the Witch]

Still pumped for 42097!

[lcvisser]

Cool, great review as usual. I like how much functions it has, all the linkages seem to work nicely. Should be a lot of fun.

Reminds me of how much fun I had with 88872 Forklift Transporter, hauling stuff around and trying to back it up. Coincidentally, that set had a car transporter as B-model and it had two cars! It also came with 18 wheels, which is a record, I think, but this one comes close with 14...

[nerdsforprez]

Does look like a good set.  Would be really cool to see someone scale it to be used with the unimog tires.  I know it would be huge, but probably fairly easy to do.  Could perhaps house cars the size of 1/10?  Like 8070 perhaps? 42077?

[Sariel]

7 minutes ago, nerdsforprez said:

Would be really cool to see someone scale it to be used with the unimog tires.  I know it would be huge, but probably fairly easy to do.

Not sure about fairly easy. A quick look at tire sizes shows that you would need to make it exactly 2x bigger.

Edited July 16, 2019 by Sariel

[nerdsforprez]

Yes I know it would be huge.  Perhaps not "fairly easy" in terms of it being redundant.  Something to the tune of Lucio Switch's trucks.  And 2x bigger would only be in scale.  For piece count, it would be something to the tune of 4-6x because of the exponential relationship between scale and piece count. 

[1gor]

Since modern trucks t be to have tires with 950-1000 mm overall diameter it could've in 1:10 scale perfect for 42077 rally car and 8070 (specially hot rod)...

[Vectormatic]

2x bigger would mean using the big porsche wheel arches...  and being able to hold porsches/chirons...

Honestly, i doubt that will work strength wise, the chiron already has some serious chassis sag from its own weight, imagine needing to support three times that weight, plus the truck itself (which in turn needs to be strong enough to carry two chirons on top, and also lift the top deck with a Chiron loaded), on just three axles. Any form of sprung suspension is right out, and even then i very much double if lego axles will be able to work properly bearing all the weight.

 

 

Back to the subject of the set(ish), ive noticed on my 42093 that the "pushrod"  V8 doesnt run very well, on the right side the pins jump up a lot higher then the left, and if i push the car along faster then what would be walking pace in scale, i get a lot of "knack"-ing sounds. I suspected the panel running over the top, as the pins can collide with that, but that doesnt seem to be the case. I would expect the V6 in the truck and the V8 in the blue car to exhibit the same issue

Really makes me wonder how good of an idea all these mini-engines are, especially in V-shapes. at least the big fake engine runs smooth even at absurd RPMs

[trekman]

That looks like a nice set. It is one of those sets where you need to apply the stickers to help the appearance of the truck. Thanks Sariel for an informative review.

[Ox1337]

On the part list (4:00 on video) the gear rack housing part has #6114965, not 18940. Why? Are there any differences?

[agrof]

18940 is the design ID, the other - longer ID number is for sub-category, which defines color, material etc.

See: https://brickset.com/parts/design-18940

[Maaboo the Witch]

@Sariel... post the 42097 review like you said you would... 

Seriously though, great review of the 42098. I actually went "Wow!" when the truck cab and deck lifted up. 

EDIT: The 42097 review is now up. Thanks, and please excuse my uncouth Tribbiani-flinging!

Edited July 17, 2019 by Maaboo35
See the bit helpfully labelled 'EDIT'.

[nerdsforprez]

Just saw the crawler crane review.  Disappointed with the poor ratings (justified).  The outriggers are a real disappointment.  They are meant to stabilize the crane.  Why have them if they are not stable themselves!

[Maaboo the Witch]

1 hour ago, nerdsforprez said:

Just saw the crawler crane review.  Disappointed with the poor ratings (justified).  The outriggers are a real disappointment.  They are meant to stabilize the crane.  Why have them if they are not stable themselves!

It's Alfred, what do you expect? 

[Sariel]

Sorry, busy at work (almost wrote "busty", whoops!), here it goes:

 

[allanp]

Soooo much twiddling of knobs. This can't be much fun to play with....erm....I mean operate! It would only be worse with the new longer LAs because that would mean even more twiddling. The car transporter also seems to have the same issue but not quite as bad. One good thing about the crane is the Arocs gear rack housings and dog bones in yellow. I'm sorry guys, I'm trying but I'm struggling to put much of a positive spin on either of these sets.

@SarielI know star ratings are purely subjective and matters of opinion but I have to ask, how do you derive your scores for authenticity? Your graphic says "How do model's looks and functions compare against its real-life inspiration?". It seems odd to have looks be part of that when you already have a dedicated category for looks. And comparing functions, well the functions look like they move like the real life inspiration but the functions certainly don't work, operate or perform like that in real life. So again it appears you have two scores for looks and non for mechanical authenticity. Not that I mind as your review shows perfectly well that these things are true, just seems a little odd that a scoring system for a predominantly Technic focused review is more concerned with looks then replication of real world mechanics or, "build for real" so to speak.

 

Edited July 17, 2019 by allanp

[Sariel]

For me looks is about aesthetics while authenticity is about realism. So a set can be pretty but unrealistic or ugly as hell yet accurate.

[Erik Leppen]

As always your reviews give a very nice overview of the sets and highlight all aspects. Thanks for making them!

I do find both sets a bit weird though. The car transporter looks like a perfect play set for the target audience, but as a build, it seems beyond boring to me. I already thought it felt like beam stacking before all the platforms/panels went on. Sure, it's a nice set and I like that we see something different, but I also think the set would have been better without the trailer and with the ramp just attached to the main truck. Right now, there is a lot of repetition. Also, it doesn't offer much new in terms of parts. I do like the fact it can be used with 42093.

The spider crane is also a bit of a wacky model. It feels like an experiment, it's so different from other sets (for me, that's a plus). And it's not even that small a set. In a way, I like it a lot. But I am disappointed that the outriggers are not linked (not even in pairs), and that there's so many functions whose controls are so close to the operation that it almost doesn't count as functions. That the outriggers are so flimsy is a shame, but I think would be hard to fix. Although all those linkages with infinite amounts of 2x4 L beams certainly don't help. In any case, I'm triggered to try building a spider crane MOC some day, to see if I could do better :)

[Ivan_M]

I think that TLG picked a wrong scale for the spider crane again, trying to impress with size to the point it is suffering from it. I also agree that the car transporter should have been done without trailer but longer. Thank you for your reviews

[Kaero]

Sariel: The (hypothetical) question is, how would you rate the spider crane if the outriggers would be working correctly? (Of course I do not know if such a modification is possible without total overhaul or in this scale.).

[Ngoc Nguyen]

3 hours ago, Ivan_M said:

I think that TLG picked a wrong scale for the spider crane again

What do you think would be the proper scale for the spider crane?

[Ivan_M]

24 minutes ago, Ngoc Nguyen said:

What do you think would be the proper scale for the spider crane?

Someone already mentiond it:

I have revers-engeneered it back then and it is superb, it is missing extending outriggers but they can lift it from ground and they matter.Its lifting capability is also impressive. It is very easy and QUICK to setup, that sloweness is killing 42097

[Sariel]

6 hours ago, Kaero said:

Sariel: The (hypothetical) question is, how would you rate the spider crane if the outriggers would be working correctly? (Of course I do not know if such a modification is possible without total overhaul or in this scale.).

4 or 5 out of five. It's a very playable set and possibly the most unique LEGO Technic crane up to date. I like it a lot, except for the obviously botched outriggers.