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This is an excellent go kart for the price! We bought it for our 6-yr-old son. He worked on all aspects of the assembly which made him very familiar with how it works. Throttle response is gradual and proportional to pedal travel: in other words, the kart doesn’t build up engine revs without movement and then lunge forward, instead it moves out in a very predictable manner. The three speed semi-auto manual has made our son an excellent driver. He is able to control the speed, gauge when to shift up or down based on the terrain and situation. The kart is very capable off-road, operating like a locked rear differential. First gear offers low speed for controlled descent and then plenty of torque for climbing. Top gear is pretty fast for its size, but our son knows when he can go fast and when not to. Engine noise is subdued, much lower noise than your neighbor’s lawn mower! It has grown-up car features that add to the realism and joy of driving which our son really loves including rear view mirrors, turn signals, horn, lights with high/low beam, parking break, key-based ignition and hydraulic brakes. In fact, with all those features, he’s become very observant of my own driving and constantly asks me questions about driving situations that we encounter in my car, as well as reminding me on proper driving rules and etiquette!
The shipping container and packing was thorough. There was some paint scuffed off during transport, but the metal frame in which it arrived and to which the kart was bolted secured it during its journey. We touched up the paint with spray can from our local hardware store. Note that the combined kart and shipping frame make the entire package very heavy. A forklift or large group of people with ramps will be needed to offload it and move the package into place for storage/assembly.
Assembly instructions are vague in parts, and the manual could use a lot of improvement in content, format and grammar. Some tips that may help: The wheels are supposed to face a specific direction, with the herring bone pattern pointing toward the front of the kart as you stand over the top of the tire. Assemble the roll cage by first leaving lots of room for it to wiggle by just staging the bolts, this will help get all the bars in their right place after which you can tighten the bolts down gradually and rotating through them so that it sits square on the frame. The cross-bar bolt holes are covered by the roll cage protective foam and the holes are not marked: you may try pinching the foam with your fingers to locate, in one case we could not find them with that technique, so we used a tiny sewing needle to probe the foam working our way slowly along the bar until we located the bolt hole. The battery is shipped dry and requires you to fill it using the contents of the white plastic bottle – note that there are levels for each cell marked on the side. You must also open and attach the vent tube to the battery. We found that we needed to charge the new battery before it would start. The fuel flow valve under the tank has odd markings which don’t make it clear which direction it needs to point for it to flow. The idle control needed adjustment to keep the engine running – this is a tiny screw on the carburetor on the side of the engine facing the seatback, tighten it in to increase idle.
Otherwise, assembly can be done by one adult, no parts are excessively heavy, a strong person can easily pick up one end of the kart and slide a jack-stand underneath. A basic tool set is all that is needed. After running the kart for a while, go back and check all the bolts and nuts, we found several that needed tightening after a bit of flexing and vibration.
Probably the biggest omission in the manual or directions is that the gear selector must be in neutral (zero) and the brake pedal must be depressed before the ignition will work. This instruction should be highlighted. This may seem obvious to some, but yours truly spent a long time on this, and that in combination with the low battery and the fuel shut-off valve misdirection, it was quite a puzzle.
In Summary: highly recommended.
Rating:  [5 of 5 Stars!] |
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