K'Nex Road Rigs - Tow Truck product reviews

Ever since I got the first K'Nex set for my son 4 years ago, he has had to share them with me... because I love them too! It has been great watching them evolve from little 10 or 20-piece sets given away at the fast food chains, through to fully-fledged masters in their own right. And here we have a new example of exactly why these are just as cool, if not cooler, than your traditional Lego-style blocks...

Built using the new Lego-compatible bricks as well as the traditional sticks-&-connectors, this kit is easily expandable to include anything from extra towing rig to weapons for shooting down competing towies trying to steal your wreck. Gotta love those projectile launchers from the Bionicle toys.

Even though we followed the instructions to the letter the first time we built this model, we still ran into a couple of strange glitches. The big one was that the bonet didn't want to sit as flat as illustrated. It kept getting 'lifted' at the front by the big silver engine-block piece. In the end we modified the design to move the bonnet hinge assembly up a fraction, so that the hood was level when fully down. The second glitch was a little more disturbing... and it's one that the parents of 'rough-play' kids might want to be aware of...

When opening the lid of the battery compartment on the motor, I noticed that the socket the screw houses in was loose. As soon as I went to close the lid, the protruding screw tip shoved into the housing and broke it loose! This proceeded to rattle around inside the motor for a while until it got caught up in the gear and ground the engine to a noisy halt. Because I have a comprehensive toolkit, I was able to find a screwdriver head that allowed me to open the motor housing and dig the offending bit out, allowing us to resume play. I would *NOT* recommend this course of action to any potential buyers. I have years of experience dissecting toys, and can assure you this is a great way to void your warranty and cause greater damage if you are not 110% careful!

However, despite my delicate surgery, the damage had already been done, and now the motor makes horrible gear-grinding noises if the truck encounters any obstacles at all. This has put a bit of a dampener on my son's enjoyment of this model, however it wasn't too difficult to modify the design to replace the engine brick with an assemblage of Lego-style bricks, making the model what you could call 'manually motorised'.

Overall, a slight hiccup with the motor didn't really downgrade the model much at all, and it provided me with a nice challenge suitably impressing my young son with my (albeit basic) mechanical skills. Great father-son bonding time, and a great toy. Looking forward to seeing what they bring out K'Next!