Andrew James Ride on Electric Sports Car in Red With Remote Control

Bought this ride-on car for my two year old daughter. Arrived promptly from Andrew James Ltd. Minimal set up required, and looks the business. Only criticism during set up is that some of the functions are optional (i.e. can be enabled/disabled if required) but nothing in instructions to tell you how to do this. For example, came with some of the functions already disabled such as the pedal and steering. This is for younger children who don't have the coordination to drive the car themselves. Good idea although would useful to know how to enable this feature! Finally figured out that you had to plug some wires together underneath the seat. Same goes for allowing the remote control to work.

Anyway, got the car up and running after a small bit of head scratching. Battery already had charge in it although it does recommend that you charge it up for 12 - 15 hours before using it first. So far have been quite impressed with it. My daughter certainly likes it. It comes with two ignition keys and you get an engine sound on start up. Four buttons on the steering wheel i.e. two indicators, a horn, and a random music button. Music annoying after about a minute but I'm sure most small kids would love it. Pressing the horn switches it off fortunately. Connection for an MP3 player in the dashboard (my own car doesn't even have that!) which we've yet to try. Switch also on dashboard for switching on lights at front of car. Car also has reversing lights and indicator lights at the front activated from the buttons on the steering wheel. What else... Seat belt and door handles but doors don't open which is a shame (as I know she would have liked that). Remote control allows you (the responsible adult ;-) to drive the car although if the child tries to steer at the same time then it makes for some interesting driving. There is a lever for forward/reverse and an accelerator pedal on the car which we've currently disabled. As far as I know, I can't disable the steering though.

Only criticisms are that the turning circle is a bit naff (e.g. we're having to do five point turns to manouvre the car around corners in our house) and on surfaces like grass the car doesn't perform too well. Note, this was relatively short grass on flat ground and with just a two year old in it. On paving stones did OK though. I'd suggest if you're buying this car more for use outdoors then you might want to consider a model with a 12V motor in it which are coming down in price. e.g. you can get one of the jeeps for about the same price as this now. One other criticism is the latch the holds the chair down is a bit weak so doesn't really stop kids getting underneath the chair to the wiring. I don't think this would necessarily pose a danger to kids although I don't imagine it would do the car much good if they got in and started pulling at the wires.

Only other thing I can think that is important, but too early to give my verdict on, is the battery. It has certainly been put through its paces this week and at no time did it go flat but I wouldn't like to comment on how good it is just yet. I would point out that most of the functions being used this week has been pressing of the buttons rather than driving so obviously that would use less power. The battery is glued in so getting a replacement (if it ever needs one) doesn't look like a straight forward switch.

Anyway, to sum up. We've had a lot of fun with it so far and even buying it was good fun such is the selection of vehicles you can choose from now. Hopefully it will still be in use in months to come.

we bought this for our grandson who will never get out of it only to eat his christmas dinner its fantastic and value for money its also very good fun as a large remote control car brilliant all round