Your view on buying part built kits

[DJ_K666]

Would you buy them? A certain auction site has plenty of kit built locomotives for sale but for me, part of the appeal is building it start to finish. It'd be like buying an apple only to find someone has taken a bite already. Eww. I have also found that the moment I buy a kit one of the manufacturers announces a RTR version.

That said even K's kits are getting expensive now, and they came with everything, even if the motors could be a bit ropey and the wheels suspect.

 

[Peter C]

I've not bought any loco kits as of yet, but the idea of buying a part-built one is still an interesting thought.
If a kit had been part-built and the difficult bits had been done (perhaps motor fitting, as an example), I'd probably go for it. However, if it needed lots of work, then I'd probably go for an entirely-unbuilt kit as that's probably going to be easier.
One of my concerns when buying part-built kits would be if all the parts are there: there's nothing worse than losing a bit of a kit when making a building or something like that so an engine would be worse, especially seeing as most bits on an engine tend to be necessary for it to look right. Another issue is that of painting - a lot of the part-built kits I've seen for sale online have already had paint applied, making the job of painting the full thing more difficult as you either have to find the right shade of the colour, or you have to strip all the paint off and start again.

-Peter