My boys favorite

I bought this for my boys and they absolutely love it. They spend hours playing with it, racing cars and washing them up. It inspires their imagination and I love that.

A fun toy that will appeal to kids who like make-believe

While this is a Hot Wheels toy, I wouldn't recommend this to kids who just want speed and track-racing. This toy is more interactive than that, with a healthy dose of make-believe. Essentially, this is for kids who love the idea of a wacky, surreal car wash guarded by an ornery gator. Kids who love to do step by step will enjoy this, it's not about racing, but it's really good for imagination and teaching them motor skills. Figuring out how each thing works and why it affects the car the way it does, is a lot of fun for older kids.

Both old and young really loved the colour change aspect. For the hot part we just ran a hot tap and for the cold section, we used water from the fridge, so I recommend you do the same. The whirlpool particularly was a hit with the younger kids who wanted to mash that button (It's actually more like a pump) super hard and had a great time. I would definitely supervise younger kids with this, if they open the water tower tap, they can easily let it overflow if they're careless and it's fully filled.

In terms of mess, this definitely gets water around, but it's not so insane that you can't use it inside. Pop a beach towel underneath and your kids can have fun, even if you don't have a yard.

Setup isn't too difficult and won't take more than 15-20 minutes. It's not hard to snap the parts together, but those with arthritic hands or bad backs, might enlist help to avoid unnecessary pain. The parts are split into 3 'sections' and while I wish the drawings were a little clearer, I was able to figure it all out. If you have older kids, they can help assemble and it's almost like a jigsaw puzzle watching it come together.

For us, the only negative was the gator. While they loved the idea of the gator chomping down, in reality it was actually hard to get it to occur. The car has to hit the side fast and hard enough to trigger his mouth and it actually rarely happened during our play. It would be cool if there was a button to trigger the chomp and one kid could try and 'trap' the other's car. It could also be difficult to tip the car out of the 'colour change pool' if it wasn't lifted fast enough.

This toy doesn't need batteries and comes with everything supplied and is recommended for ages 4+.

Overall, we really enjoyed it and it gives a lot of really cool features. It's not a race track, really, despite being hot wheels, but there are still parts where the car goes quickly. I'd recommend this as a gift to kids who already have a more straightforward 'racing' hot wheels track and would like something a little different.