Fanatec V3 pedals review

the fanatec v3 pedal set has been in the market for a while now it represents the best pedal offering in the fan attack roster i've been rocking the fanatexia cell elite for quite a while i've spoken very highly of them due to the price and features i wasn't dissatisfied with them but i think it was worthwhile to get the v3s and create a review on them so i splashed the dosh to truly test them for over the course of three months to see if it's worthwhile over the csl first of all a big thank you to all of the viewers it's only through your support your views and your generous donations that these reviews are possible but also a bit of the disclaimer here even though i purchased the pedal set in the upgrades what happened is i have an affiliate link below so that means if you decide to buy some finite tech equipment through that affiliate link i will be financially compensated i will keep my impartiality as much as i can but please take this review with a grain of salt i've been a user of fnatic pedals for almost 10 years now my first pedal set were the finitex csrs they were showing its sage so i bought the csl to replace them but the finitex csr customizability was something that usually impressed me and it was with that in mind that i bought the v3s but there's almost six years of difference between the csrs and the v3s so there are some substantial differences first of all a bit of specs the v3s have a cnc metal build they are almost fully adjustable there are hull sensors on the throttle and clutch pedals they are at 12 bit resolution the throttle comes with another stiffer spring as well as the clutch the brake pedal has a 90 kilo adjustable load cell at 12 bit resolution if you connect through the wheel base it will maintain the 12 bit the pedals are adjustable in terms of strength angle and preload it has vibration motors in both the throttle and brake they can be connected to usb or through the wheelbase making it compatible with all current platforms and it comes with an extra set of pedal plates it comes at the price of 359.95 euro or us dollars 43 000 yen or 550 of those upside down dollars price wise they're sitting in a quite comfortable position they're about 120 euros or dollars more expensive than the csl so they are about almost 50 to 70 percent of the price but they're around 300 dollars cheaper than the uxinvelt battle sets which are in my opinion very fantastic pedals but because of that they are sitting in almost no man's land where there's no competition against them because it sits somewhat alone in that price bracket of 360 to 390 dollars they tend to be extremely popular they are very much customizable and they have a few options some of the options are upgrades that you can purchase one of them is the brake performance kit which is something essential in my opinion and the other one is the damper set which you can use on the throttle or brake or boat if you buy two sets in terms of construction the v3s are very well assembled they are super strong super sturdy very very thick and good metal assembly i really like the details they chosen this color palette of black with these milled areas over here in polish very high polish very nice including on the faces the faces the pedal faces themselves you can change to another set and as you can see here this is an upgraded piece it has the damper installed i purchased this separately but if you want to change and do some upgrades on it from the stock you can do it because it does come with a set of springs this is the throttle spring it's quite soft so it came with the black one which was upgraded on a throttle for the clutch i kept it stock but it does come with the stiffer clutch spring normally there's not much to tell about the throttle actuation normally it's just super linear and this one isn't an exception of course with the damper over here now for the brake pedal this one has a story to tell even at stock format it does come with this knob that will allow you to change how much the preload compresses the inside rubber the rubber is on the inside and you can change them to a brake performance kit as for clutch actuation this is the type that tries to mimic clutch forks so it doesn't feel that you can't move it and then just move as it all together it's not a linear actuation so you won't be feeling a linear actuation it's more of a on and off type of switch that you will try to balance it when it's more over here uh when you try to do some clutch starts it's more difficult than a linear one but i guess over the time you'll be getting used to it if i were to choose it for myself i would prefer a linear one pedals from stock come with vibration motors so it comes with vibration motors on the throttle and on the clutch for the throttle because i have the damper i had to invert it it's very easy to do and for the brake you would have to do exactly the same thing it's not very hard to do it just takes one minute or two to invert the bolt the way they work it's when you have a tire slip on the throttle you'll feel it on the vibration motor and with the brake it's when you lock the tires or when you have the abs kicking continuing with the customizability of the stock v3s out of the box they come with these separate d-shaped petal sets which come with this extension that can be changed on the pivot point this can be also mixed and matched with anything you see here so for example if you want to use the regular pad of faces on this extension you can do so by removing it it's super simple there's just some few bolts over here there are also some extensions over here on this part it looks like a a metal block because it is essentially just a metal block you can mix and match this with the d-shaped petals or not it's whatever suits you for me personally this is the most comfortable i can get but for some of you and for a lot of people the d-shaped are super super popular sadly they are made of plastic and not metal like these amazing faces but i guess they will last a little bit the v3s like i said they are customizable not in terms of just the pedal faces but also from the options that you can buy on the store i have it installed both the brake performance kit on the brake and also the dampener what i'm going to say about the brake performance kit will sound self-serving because i do have the affiliate link but let me tell you that if you are going to buy this pedal set you need to get the v3 brake performance kit not so much the damper in reality for me this is completely passable but there are a couple of reasons the first reason is monetary these are 30 pounds and they will offer you better braking performance and if you buy them separately you'll have to pay that much or even more in terms of postage so might as well just buy them together and just pay the postage once the second reason is more practical and it's because of the brake rubbers these are the stock brake rubbers they look more like foams i've had these similar on the csr and they are not good at all they're very very mushy you are going to overpower these very easily and from stock the v3s are awful in my opinion in terms of the braking performance if you get the club sport braking performance kit you do have a set of options it comes with the stiffer green ones and the softer reds and you can mix and match there are 13 and 12 millimeter on each side the 12s are softer than the 13s and also comes with the lithium grease and the tool the insulation is not that difficult you just need to undo a small screw you need to take out a in terms of the damper in my opinion it's really not that worthwhile it's completely passable like i've stated in terms of the damper itself like i said it it's completely passable and you wouldn't miss it if you didn't buy it i bought it wouldn't miss it i'm just gonna leave it here because i bought it and there is a way that should it can make it the throttle pedal actually feel nice in terms of the brake pedal using it there it's not good at all what the damper does is basically reduce the acceleration of your brake or throttle movement or your foot movement and it just makes it really really aggravating for me so what i ended up doing is putting it on the throttle reduce uh the dampener effect to almost a minimum to one which is one of the lowest settings and also reduce the preload over here at the dampener which works more or less like a shock in the car and what it does is create a more or less of a stabilizing effect so we don't fluctuate much on your throttle input if you want to leave it at a certain threshold of your throttle it wouldn't move much up and down without that it will move fluctuate just a little more but honestly that is not translated in a better driving and in terms of immersion you could say that it doesn't do that much the first thing you need to be doing after installing the mods and i had to redo the mod for this video is to make sure that you have your calibration okay in this case the throttle doesn't go up and the brake also in this case it doesn't go up to the max so we're gonna start with the throttle we're gonna start with the throttle we're gonna max out the throttle and then set at maximum and then we're gonna have a maximum movement one thing that you can do is going to just load the maximum like that and press set maximum so you can actually have like a full movement up to the top if there's a small dead zone that might appear it will disappear automatically and you can do the same at the minimum now for the break same thing press the maximum that max and done try again done this part is done what you can also do in the software if you remove the manual mode is to change your force on the brake make it easier to activate see this doesn't move as much or make it harder to activate over here i'm really really pressing and i'm not going all the way so in my case i do prefer it to have in this uh manual mode at around 70ish which is for me the perfect break point my first contact with the v3s was at sim expo 2019 so years after its release and i can't really say that i was impressed with the performance or how they felt in your feet when you're breaking and throttling up so i was thinking when i bought these maybe my experience would be different if i bought them because when i tried it out it was in the context of a racing exposition where the pedals need to be used for everyone by everyone and they need to cater to most people so i thought i would buy it and it will be different in reality it wasn't the case in reality it was very much similar to what i have experienced on simracing expo the throttle you could change it it was soft by stock you change the throttle spring and then it would uplift the experience on the throttle but the brake it was exactly the same thing and the reason is very simple the brake rubber that comes in the pedal set is super mushy for context i was coming from a fanatex csl and even from the softest of the rubbers the 60 shore it kind of felt that it had more meat into the brake pedal the result is a stock braking experience that leaves a lot to be desired a super mushy brake pedal very hard to trail brake very hard to modulate maybe it will be good for a lot of people that don't want a brake set that is so hard but for me it was very hard and completely substandard to use and as such this is why i definitely recommend the brake performance kit now in terms of use i use this pedal set quite substantially including in a couple endurance races it has seen use in assetto corsa ceto corsa competizione dirt rally 2 and also eye racing so there is a little bit of everything with all the changes done so we're talking about the springs and the brake rubbers the experience is very much uplifted with just 30 pounds of upgrades the brake is very much improved it allows you to trail brake the pu foam does help a lot it's not the same thing as the csl if you have a csl a pedal set you'll understand that the foam is super soft i enjoy that it's going to take a while for the v3 pu foam to be at that level and definitely the stiffer from stock rubber rods help with modulating the brake and understanding where you need to put your brake points and everything else and in terms of braking experience i feel very confident in braking with the v3s with a notable exception with iracing where i can't break to save my life i've tried a bit of everything and eye racing is just the exception it's something that i need to learn as for the damper the damper is at most okay especially at the price it becomes a little less than okay it is a gimmick for me it's definitely a gimmick it allows at most in the throttle not on the brake it allows atmos to avoid the throttle fluctuations if you want to really keep your foot planted and the throttle is not moving up and down and that is only if you use it at least for me in very low damping rates if you try to do something that is very hard dampening you're gonna have like a very hard time accelerating it's not the same as a spring it's just the acceleration that you can put on the the brake or the throttle it just reduces so much no matter how much force you put behind it with all of these changes with the throttle and the brake and all the springs and you know modifying a little bit and customizing a little bit the v3s as you wanted my first experience from the sim racing expo was totally changed for the better as for conclusions the phonetic v3s are an excellent pedal set at the price point that will make you think that if you should skip the phonetex csl load cells it's a super customizable pedal set it's very sturdy it doesn't flex it at least didn't flex with me there are a few things that are gimmicky there the dampers like i said and in my opinion also the vibration motors if those weren't there i wouldn't miss them but if you're going to buy this buy the brake pedal kit otherwise you might feel a little bit disappointed on how mushy that rubber is besides the build quality of an attack also has chosen hull sensors so it will give you a little more longevity than for example the finite x csl but very much like the phanatex csr of volts it's in the customizability where this pedal set as one me over being able to change the throttle uh preload changing the springs if you want something stiffer and also the relationship of each pedal face to the other is something that i appreciate quite a lot i believe the v3 is to be a great pedal set and maybe even worthwhile over the phonetex cl load cells if you are looking for customizability but the comparison video will be coming in the near future thank you very much for watching this video i hope you have enjoyed and you found this informative tell me in the comments what you think about this pedal set and what are your experiences with it if you want to see more of these videos the best way is to press like consider subscribing and hitting the notification bell so you'll see new videos and streams as they come out thank you very much for watching and i'll see you next time

Channel: random callsign

Views: 11,756

Rating: 4.8954868 out of 5

Keywords: sim racing, racing, assetto corsa, iracing, sim racing cockpit, gaming, fanatec, racing simulator, simracing, racing wheel, heusinkveld, racing pedals, fanatec v3, fanatec v3 pedals performance kit, fanatec v3 pedals setup, fanatec v3 pedals, fanatec v3 review, fanatec damper kit, fanatec damper kit on throttle, thrustmaster, csl elite range, clubsport range, sim racing pedals, best pedals 2021, fanatec v3 pedals review

Id: mPWbk74Hevg

Length: 17min 29sec (1049 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 07 2021