This is an outstanding crawler. No need to upgrade motor, upgrade servo, everything works as it comes. Servo isn't the strongest you can get, but it has been rare when it didn't have enough power. Motor is powerful, you don't get stuck against an obstacle and have to keep applying power until it finally jumps!
I put on some light bead lock wheels, new tires, and go crawl. Fantastic value for all the capability.

Could not be happier. Strong motor, strong servo, layout of electronics is great. Great crawler.

Another good deal from DirectRC. The ascent 18 is great out of the box and much better with a few inexpensive upgrades.

best out the box for the money, no doubt! plenty of upgrades available if u want to make it even better.

Out of the box, this truck is already excellent. Very good build quality and all pieces are serviceable. Loads of upgrades from both the manufacturer and 3rd parties. Really hard to beat the performance/price of this truck compared to others

This was my first crawler.
great right out of the box.

In terms of performance/$ the Ascent-18 is probably the best you can do out of the box. They dominate the stock class at the local comp that allows only wheel/tire and a servo upgrade.

Great all around

What I ordered but waited three months for it...

Awesome RC truck best RTR I’ve had yet!