Hot Wheels track sets - fab toy or a pain in the ****?

[Flutterbye]

For a 4 year old car obsessed boy, trying to think of xmas and b'day pressie, or also considering "Cars"/Roary figure of eight race type track. Are these type of things a pain to store, do they fall apart easy (18 month old sister meddling!). Any ideas, ta.

this is a good track as it folds up and lets you see which car is the fastest, no batteries, no sound effects!

The huge clip together ones are a PITA, they take up loads of room and if you look at them the wrong way they collapse.

That fold out race track looks like a good option. I got DS loads of micro machine sets as they take up less room and tend to be self contained rather than clip togehter.

My ds has been obsessed with hot wheels since he was about 3, he's now 6 and still plays with them loads.

As long as you get the sets that don't have long bendy pieces - they tend not to stay on- I think they're great.

He also had a "cars" set at xmas cost £40 and quite flimsy but the cars themselves are good quality and he loves lining them up and playing on his road mat.

My ds (now 4) has the hot wheels track with the pterodactyl. He got it over a year ago and still plays with it although some of the track pieces are broken and thus won't stay on; not due to abuse by ds, just the fact of being plastic and not having a v long natural life. But it's still one of his fave toys and once you've put it together a couple of times you'll get the gist and be able to do it in a few mins/without instructions. They do take up a lot of room however and storage when not in use can be a problem; ours is under ds's bed but he's always taking out bits of the race track to use as a bashing tool.

Better these however than the smaller Hot Wheels sets; we got ds the meteorite one and the car colour change (it jumps in a tub of water) one for recent b'day, and he played with each of them once...LOADS of tiny little pieces that I'm still finding under sofas etc...complete waste of money and never again.

Not a hot wheel track ,but even easier

We got ds this "cars" track for his birthday.
It is excellent,although it does need batteries.
Folds up and really fast,zippy and he loves it as do all his friends.He is 5 but it would be great for a 4 yr old aswell

We have criss cross crash. It is a PITA to put together...and it makes the most godawful racket imaginable.

It is quite good fun though