LEGO - Technic App-Controlled Top Gear Rally Car 42109

I received this as a gift for my birthday and had a good enough time building it. I was shocked it needed 6 AA batteries to use but thats minor as I enjoyed playing with it but not enough to permanently devote all those batteries to it full time. My personal beef with it is the high price for the small amount of pieces the set contains and ease of the build. While i'm grateful for the set, I personally would have recommended spending the money on a different set.

I'm at the age where i only care about paying my bills so i was very happy that my sister surprised me with this on my bday. I couldn't wait to build it and i enjoyed every second definitely cheered me up and broke up the monotony of my 60 hour work week schedule. I love the attention to detail and the construction of this model was methodically thought out; although you could probably add a couple more arrows in the directions to show where pieces snap together i had to do a few double takes to assemble. My only issue is that the app might need some minor adjustments. When shifting gears it will show on the app but physically the car is not accelerating it just maintains the same speed; i tested this using both manual and automatic transmission; this happens sometimes not always. Also the tilt mode for steering only works if you hold your phone perfectly center but even then turning can be tricky. I am using an i-phone, but this may be a firm ware issue. On the other hand i think its incredible that you programmed this car to shift gears and for the most part it physically adjusts speed. I love the extra layer of depth that the app provides with sound, challenges and the ability to drive the car using different modes.

I assume that LEGO had to pay a premium to use the Top Gear branding (hence the price) which encouraged me to buy it; but in fact this connection added no value or added interest to the actual product!! There weren't many pieces when the box was opened, and my kids were pretty underwhelmed by the control App. The worst thing about the controls was that when they blipped out, (repeatedly) the app made you go through the whole set-up procedure from the start. Oh, and it consumed batteries! It was played with on Christmas Day and has not appeared since :-(

So first off this is a great looking model. It's got some really nice details but sadly that mostly comes from the many stickers it has. I would say the kit is expensive considering the number of actual parts so I'm guessing most of the cost is in the 2 motors and the Bluetooth hub. The build itself is quite simple and didn't take that long which was disappointing considering the price but still a fun build. Lastly driving with the app. This is good fun as you can use gyro control as well or even drive manually where you pick the speed. It is unfortunately WAY too slow especially when driven in auto mode as despite the name never seems to want to get into top gear. Overall this is a nice kit to build but it's too expensive, there's too much reliance on stickers to give detail and it's woefully slow to drive. I got this as a birthday present so I am quite disappointed with it, might not have been if the car was twice as fast. LEGO you can do so much better than this.

Low quality product and to be avoided. Bought for son to build. The steering motor slams in one direction when powered. Cannot be corrected. Appears on a lot of online chat boards as a defect. Do not buy this, is an unusable product.