Thoughts on Power Wheels vs. go kart

Blaze

Blaze

The Jeeper Reaper
Joined
Aug 9, 2005
Location
Wake Forest, NC
Trying to figure something out here and want some advice from some parents who have kids who have these.

My son had this little cheap 6V Mud Warrior electric Jeep. He wouldn't ride it because it is too slow, so I put a 12v lawnmower battery in it and he hauled ass until he figured how to make the tires spin my quickly reversing the direction of the motor and the motor blew up. He was too big for it anyway and looked like a sardine in it.

Anyway, he's turning 4 in a few weeks and we want to get him another one. Problem is, he is a BIG 4 year old. Like, most people think he's about 6. :lol:

The normal Jeep Wrangler Power Wheels is too small for him. We were wondering about the Jeep Hurricane one, but we can't find any in the stores to have him try out.

Then I thought tonight, maybe I'll find him a go cart and just detune it so he can't go fast with it right now. He drives pretty good, but sometimes he goes ape shit like a normal 4 year old and who knows what will happen. He's been known to run into the house before because he wanted to know what it felt like. That's my boy alright. :lol:

So I'd definitely get a gocart with a roll cage.

Thoughts? I don't want to spend $400 on a Power Wheels only to have him outgrow it before he turns 5.
 
Oh, and I did consider a 4-wheeler power wheels, but he really prefers to drive.

And he's coordinated like me, so inevitably he would fall off of it and get run over by it.

I got my first 200cc 4-wheeler when I was 9. I've been through it all. :lol:
 
My 4 yr old has a powerwheels that he's been getting bored with..

I downloaded some plans and started building him a kart. It has a 36" wheel base so it's definitely kid sized. I made a few modifications to the plans to lift the kart about 2" higher than what the specs had it. That way he'll be able to ride it in the woods in the back yard.

It's also a live-axle instead of single wheel drive. If I see him do anything that makes me nervous, I'll see what I can do about adding a roll cage to it.
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sounds like you (ahem, I mean he) wants a go-cart. My oldest turned 6 in Oct, he's medium build (56lbs) but one of the tallest kid in his class. The Hurricane is tight on him, plus it doesnt go fast with the stock 12V battery. I don't think it will even spin tires on pavement, but those knobbies do wear fast on pavement. Its kind of cool on the grass and even in the woods, the tires hook up, it must be geared low for crawling. I had to weld on a guide to tighten up the steering, it was wearing out. That thing is just too heavy.

We're trying to steer him towards the bicycle. My other 2 kids (almost 5yr old twins) still barely fit in their standard 12V powerwheels Jeeps. Those are good (but too small for your kid Blaze), they are dialed in right for speed/power/tire slide pavement action. One of them likes to drive the Hurricane, but it just kind of lumbers around the pavement, it doesnt get their blood flowing like the lighter weight 12V-ers.
 
I got my son a Jeep Hurricane when he turned two and it took him about six months to learn how to steer it away from everything. Needless to say I don't hardly have any landscape lighting left. He has had a blast wheeling this thing like daddy for the last year and he also rides his one yr. old brother around too and he loves it. The Hurricanes do have crappy gear boxes in them I've replaced three and your not suppose to be able to buy them they must be installed by a service center but I found one place that would sell them to me. I did buy him a small go cart but he was still to small for it. Well now I ran across a very nice '02 Honda fiddy (xr50) last week and I had to buy it for him. I was going to save it for a holiday or his b-day but damn it I was to excited so I built him some training wheels turned the throttle down and sent him out through the field w/ the biggest smile on his face. Saturday was his first time riding it and he rode it for over four hours. He loves it. Cool thing is I got $150 less in the fiddy than I did in the Hurricane.

I would say from experience to buy a good product w/ an engine and govern it down. I can already see the $500 hurricane getting trashed in a couple years but I don't see the go cart or fiddy going any where. especially w/ a one yr old coming up right behind my 3 yr old.
 
I got a Big Yerf dog for the kids(myself) and I cut trails in the 3 acres I had over here.I read online it would go 29MPH wide open.When I got it only the passenger seat belt was there and I always thought"Well that's OK,I go about 6'4" and 275,it's not like I am gonna fall out".Guess again.I had that thing wound all the way out back in the woods and hit a tree.It threw me out into the tree and cut my face up pretty good,plus the steering wheel knocked the air right out of me.So I end up on the ground a few feet from the Go cart,there is blood running down my face and I can't breath.My son is still in the go cart crying his eyes out and I can't get to him,other than to crawl.I finally got my breath and walked him out of the woods,I had to have most of the frame of the go cart welded back together to sell it.So anyways,Seat Belts are good!!
 
My Dad bought a Carbide 150cc go cart for my sister recently, IMO its way overpriced, but it has taken a serious beating so far. Her and her friends have ran it into trees in the woods and jumped it a few times, but that doesn't add up to us taking it to URE. Dad rolled it twice (Driving too fast the first time, and majorly off camber the 2nd time and instead of backing off he kept in it) Gocart took the beating and kept on going the remainder of the day with no issues.

Its more fun than I expected, I took it out on the URE Adventures track at night and couldn't help but have a blast, think I drove around doing jumps for atleast 30 minutes. I would say it does about 40 mph, roughly.

Did every trail except the Dutch John Hill Climb and Daniel, just didn't have the ass to make it up, so we pulled it.
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That's kind of what we were thinking. We asked him last night if he'd rather have another Jeep or a go kart and he said go kart. So we said "would you like to have a really big cool Jeep that you can drive over stuff and play the radio and take Jacob (my youngest son) for rides in, or a go kart. He still said go kart, because they "are really cool and fast" he said.

I'm glad you guys are giving me the answer I was thinking of. Now I just gotta find a good one.
 
Picked up a couple of old racing karts a few years ago for my son (9 now) and me. The biggest drawback has been having to be at a track, since they only have about 2 inches of clearance. Started him with a gas burner and then built him a methanol motor and gave him more gear (will top out at about 45) once he had been on it for a few months. He has had a blast and so have I. The biggest thing I would suggest is a good, properly fitting helment and neck brace.
 
My son got his CRF50 for christmas on 09. He was three when he got it. I think it was alot better than a go kart. You can throttle them way back and the traning wheels makes it very safe. The only draw back to the training wheels are that the kids depend on them.
 
I would buy him a dirt bike, but he really doesn't have many places to ride one. A gokart he can drive around the neighborhood, but not a dirtbike. I had the same problem with my first dirtbike, never many places to ride it. Ended up selling it and never bought another one. Plus, you may have missed my post about my son and my coordination. :lol:

Definitely getting a good helmet, too.

But this may not happen at all. My in-laws were going to go in with us on it, but they won't if we get a go kart. The have "done the research" and apparently kids die and get covered in gasoline and lit on fire or some bullshit. Whatever.

We've been working on an old 4hp yard cart, so it's not like he doesn't have one. It is the difference of him having a nice one with a roll cage or a beater one that I built out of an old road salt sprayer engine and a $20 frame from Craigslist. I figured I'd just get rid of that one when we got a nicer one. I'm going to talk to my wife about it tonight. I love her parents, but damn they can be so friggin' fatalistic sometimes.
 
tell them the electric jeeps tend to short out and catch fire turning it into plastic napalm.....

oh and forgo the over size bigwheel my son got bored with his on day two, he ended up with a YAMAHA 50 electric start... he's ten and I now need to sell it
 
:lol:

I think we're going to end up just buying him a used Power Wheels off of Craigslist and I'll just finish fixing up his current gokart. I'll just weld a cage onto it and install some seatbelts. Anyone know how to rebuild a carb on a 1972 Kohler 4hp?
 
Blaze said:
He's been known to run into the house before because he wanted to know what it felt like. That's my boy alright. :lol:
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This isn't the same child you were worried about being restrained in a child safety seat, is it? If so, what more damage could be done?:lol:
 
Bryan I have a Jeep Hurricane in good shape if thats what you are wanting. I will sell it pretty cheap, it needs a battery. It is in good shape, if you want a picture I can send you one.
 
When my kids were little I had several people to give me their Powerwheels Jeeps because the batteries were too expensive to replace.

I got bored one day and installed a small car battery under the hood of one of the Jeeps. This really woke it up, but it was not enough... I took the two motors off of the back of one of the spare Jeeps and put one onto each front spindle. This gave true four wheel drive.

The thing was a beast and could drive over a dirtpile with my 4yr old son and 6yr old daughter riding it. I even drove it over the dirtpile... The only problem was that it was a little hard to steer. It drove like a real Jeep with a Lincoln Locked frontend.

We wore out four or five sets of plastic tires before we finally retired it in favor of a Gocart.
 
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