JC Engines

This page relates to the Chinese RC model aircraft Engines marketed under the JC brand name. It does not refer to the Australian Automotive Engine company run by Joe Sammut. That company is a well regarded supplier of quality Automotive Engines and service.
 
IF, AFTER READING BELOW, YOU STILL WISH TO PURCHASE ONE OF THESE ENGINES, WE SUGGEST THE FOLLOWING SITE FOR SOME OF THE BEST PRICING AND PARTS AVAILABILITY.
That company does in fact supply the latest versions of the engines.
 
There has recently been an offer made by some distributors of the JC Model aircraft engines to replace the old defective products with a new model for what appears to be a low price (US$100 plus shipping in the case of the 28cc being replaced by a 30cc). Whilst this offer appears reasonable, it is in fact not really a great offer. Here is why.
 
What this offer really equates to is a new engine at only slightly less than the normal “Ex factory” price of a complete engine to the dealers (plus shipping). However the “replacement” engine does not include the ignition, the exhaust and some other items. These total more than the saving on the normal price the dealer would be paying for a complete engine. In fact what it means is that the factory is still getting paid full price and is most likely making an even higher profit than they would otherwise make by selling to a dealer. The factory has not only made a profit on the “replacement” engine but they have also managed to avoid the cost of what should in fact be a free repair for the older defective engine they have also already made a profit on. In other words, the customer pays another lot of full profit to the factory so that the factory can avoid honoring any warranty.
 
We applaud the distributors offering this as they have genuine and honorable reasons for doing so but we feel that it is a shame they feel the need to do so. Should the factory be honest and genuine in their efforts to make amends for past errors and should they also be honorable about the offer made by the factory in late 2011 for a 3 year warranty coverage on all older engines of all sizes. It is our opinion that they should either repair the existing engines free of charge or replace them free of charge (perhaps with the cost of shipping only - about US$25 per engine) to be borne by the end user as that would be more in line with a real warranty coverage.
 
We are no longer distributors of JC Engines. We chose to stop distributing the brand due to the inconsistent quality and performance of the engines when received by us, the unreliable availability of parts from the factory and the poor performance of their latest products when compared to existing similarly priced products from their competitors. It is unlikley that the Leopard wil lhave changed its spots so quickly as some will have you believe.
This was a very unfortunate decision to have to make after we spent a lot of time, effort and expense testing product and feeding back information to the factory to get the product improved.

The latest JC range in General? Our suggestion is not to think about them unless you are prepared to write off your investment when the engine becomes unuseable (this often includes writing off the investment in the airframe). The first prototypes of the 60cc were released to a selected few dealers around the world during October 2010. Those engines were proven to be underperfomers for their size and weight  and had a high rate of bearing failures Cylinder Chrome peeling incidents. Those early releases were purely a prototype and significant futher development was required before dealers could  offer them to the general end users with a clear conscience. However some dealers decided to offer them for sale regardless just to make sales. This is something we will never be involved in doing as we would lose money rather than knowingly supply an inferior product to the cuatomers.

 Whilst JC has finally recently released the last of the latest engine sizes during the latter half of 2011, it is our opinion that they remain as unproven and untrustworthy options due to the same root causes of the early failures remaining in the latest offerings. There are known Chrome peeling issues and crank failure issues on the newer sizes yet the existing dealers continue to try to sell these products to the end users.

The JC 28cc (Evo), the JC 53cc (Area 51) and the JC 106cc (Area 102) did finally became reasonable products after a number of changes were implemented to give them some longer term reliability however the factory manager decided to lower the quality of the product by reverting back to the older parts he had in stock and has since stopped supplying those engines altogether now  the old stock is depleted.

If your product did not come through us and you are having problems with it, please take it back to whomever you got it from for service (If they are still supporting the brand). Otherwise you can contact the factory direct and if the factory is not in ”hiding mode” they may be able to help you.

Should you have any further queries about this brand or are considering it against other brands, please contact us and we will give you a 100% honest appraisal of our recommendations on if any of your choices is right for your intentions. We are not biased in our views other than any bias based on actual experience. In fact, we have been known to advise people to purchase products we do not handle. We have a lot of real life hands-on experience with many brands and models of engines.

The JC factory has recently announced that it will cover ALL JC engines with 3 year Factory warranty by the factory itself. This has been confirmed by them to include all early versions of their 26cc, 28cc, 42cc, 53cc and 106cc products. If you are having a problem with any of their products, do not hesitate to contact them and take them up on their offer. This offer was made as recently as september 2011.

Regarding the JC 120, JC 60, JC 30cc, JC 38cc and JC 23cc offerings.

We strongly suggest that you do not consider any of these offerings and look at the DLE, DLA, SE and PTE products as a decent “Similar cost” alternative. (We do not stock these brands but there are Factory authorised distributors who do stock and support them, if you can’t find those companies, contact us and we will assist you to find one nearest you).

JC engines has a reputation for creating a product that looks fine and runs acceptably well at first in order to get the product known. History (Including current experience) shows that the factory will then do whatever is needed to reduce their costs and such choices result in a lowering of the quality and longevity of the engine. Once that decision has been made by the factory, history shows that the factory will then happily supply anything and everything that the owner of the factory thinks he can get away with. This includes “watering” down orders to the “distributors” with older inferior stock and poor performing product in the apparent hope they can get away with it.

Like many Chinese engine companies, this company has a long history of not getting their designs even close to reliable or powerful for the long term. Our advice is to be wary of having any engine from this company and if you do, make certain that you have the very latest version with all modifications. We say this because every order of previous engine sizes that we received from this company was “diluted” with a few “early models” . This was done by the manufacturer to clear his old stock. We got landed wth the headaches and unsaleable product caused by this and the manufacturer made the profit. We made certain that each engine shipped by us was the latest version and we still have a number of old styles in our warehouse that we have paid for and are unable to ethically sell.