Scaletrix or Hot Wheels

[MrsJamin]

Have two car-mad boys, nearly-3 and nearly-5. I want to get something that they will both be able to play with together and will be durable to be set up in their room and playable together with a reasonable amount of harmony. So - Scaletrix or Hot Wheels? Or is there another type of car set up?

Neither hot wheels is rubbish and the track never stays together for more than 5 minutes. Scaletrix the younger one will never be able to keep his car on the track and they will both need supervison/assistance to keep putting the cars back on the track and remaking the track .

How about a big garage that they could both play with

www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/3888384.htm

Disagree.
Hot wheels will be great if you get a reasonable size box so they can make different shape tracks & at least 1 loop the loop. DS still plays with his now aged 8 and uses it as a marble track too. He wasn't into pretend towns etc so although he had a garage with ramp etc it was hardly ever played with.
Scaletrix will be better when your younger DS is a bit older.

We are doing a scalextric build for christmas but our DS is nearly 5 and I wouldn't expect him to set it up (he can't set up his Micro version) so it is going on a board ready to play whenever. So I think 3 is a bit too young at the moment.

I would think at those ages most things are supervised in some way?

They can play in their room for up to an hour - I don't think a nearly-3 yr old needs to be supervised in play the whole time. Is it really difficult to keep the cars on the track in scaletrix? I wasn't sure how well made the hot wheels things were.

We bought My First Scalextrix for ds1, who was nearly 3 last Christmas. He loved it but needed someone to play with it with him to keep putting his car back on the track. We actually put it away for a bit as we thought he was a bit too young. However, I'm sure your 5 year old could put the cars back on and help him with not squeezing the trigger on the controller too hard. You might need to help with setting up though. DS1 has also got one of those loop the loop tracks, which he loves but not as much as the Scalextrix.

I agree that Hot Wheels is just expensive rubbish; ours ended up in the bin fairly quickly. We're considering Scalextric this year too.