Review: Binaltech Wheeljack

Since I do not have Alternator Wheeljack to make a comparison, I will do this review on Binaltech Wheeljack as he stands on his own.

The review in one word: Awesome.

The review in more than one word: I really like what has been done here. I would have never guessed that a mold that is a dead-ringer for Grimlock would work for Wheeljack, and I never would have guessed that ditching Wheeljack's red and green in favor of blue would work, but when you hold this figure in your hand there is no doubt it is wheeljack, even in car mode.

I might as well get the negatives out of the way: Both arms and both doors pop off quite easily on mine, much easier than my Alt Grimlock. Annoying, yes, but it takes nothing away from the asthetics so it is a minor annoyance in my book. I know others get pissed off to no end over stuff like that so rate it as you will.

The other negative is the front headlights. They are painted solid black. The back windows are a transparent tinted dark grey so I don't see why the front headlights can't be as well. I can't get too upset over that because it does look kinda' cool in flat black, it just makes no sense for a headlight.

On to the good stuff: Every inch of the car mode is painted. Even the plastic parts. All nice and shiny and glossy. It gives the toy a great finished look that unpainted plastic can't match. Speaking of the plastic parts: there are a lot of them. The only metal to be found is the sides of the front (plastic hood), the doors, and the "knee caps". Take that as you will, but the toy does not feel cheap in any way due to all of the paint as I mentioned before.

The head sculpt is great. The eyes are painted a bright blue that give the head that Autobot feel. The face and "fins" to the side of the head are painted metalic silver. I know I said I wouldn't compair it to the Alternator but...dang the unpainted Alt head looks sorta' dead next to the painted Binaltech head. In addition I have just noticed that the Binaltech head seems to be remolded from the Alternator head. The head extends further down past the chin on the Binaltech version eliminating the penicl neck problem. The shape of the head certainly isn't the cartoon Wheeljack head we grew up with. Everything is more angular and sleek. It works very well with the bulky body.

And yes, I have to chalk up the blue stripes as a plus as well. When I first saw the prototype pictures I thought it was a mistake for Wheeljack but now...darn it, it just looks good.

So in all we have an awesome redeco of the best Binaltech/Alt mold with the best Binaltech/Alt car model. Yeah, I love this guy.

Pretty good review. The attention to detail is refreshing...I didn't really notice the headlights until you pointed it out! Still a pretty decent car if you can get it locked together right. If you don't mind, I'll add some of my own thoughts about the figure.


The biggest negative? This mold scratches paint like crazy, Alt or BT makes no difference. It's really the only figure I've had a problem with since RiD Optimus Prime. Second, the doors seem like they're waiting to jump off all the time. I haven't opened a BT Grimlock yet so I don't know if it's this Wheeljack in particular or the design itself.

Everything else, though, worked out very well. I hated the idea of Wheeljack as a remold of Grimlock from the start. It's still wrong for alot of reasons. What won me over was simply not following instructions for the legs. In other words, wheels facing front.

Simply pop the legs off at the ball joint and switch or remove and flip the 4 parts of the crotchplate. Be careful with the latter method, though, as there's a tiny little black piece inside that's very easy to lose. If you lose it, the waste won't lock into place. The side with 1 vertical ridge should be facing up inside the front plate. Learned that the hard way and had to take apart an Alt Grimlock to correct it.

Overall I highly recommend BT Wheeljack. Digital Toys has them for $50 right now. God help you if you collect Alts though.

Guys as noted in the binaltech collection book, the arms may have been designed to come off in transformation. The transformation according to the guide, shows the arms being pulled off, then reattached. I think the same with the doors. Either way they were both designed to pop off rather then break off. I think the team probably figured how hard it was to transform, and designed those parts to be easy to remove.