Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I really wanted to like these car tracks. I totally bought into the notion that these were going to allow more creative play than competing tracks. Unfortunately, after a month of trying to enjoy them we're giving up. If the temperature is below about 80 degrees, don't even bother pulling them out. Many of the positive reviews have all sorts of qualifiers and caveats about this but the simple fact is we shouldn't have to put them in warm water or wait 30 minutes for the track to soften or spend an hour trying to get the tracks to straighten out after storage. And even if it is warm enough and we have gotten the tracks to stop curling up at the end there is very little that can be done with these. It is, in theory, possible to make a loop but it requires a ridiculous amount of propping and stacking and even then you may only get one run before the tracks shift and you have to start over. Yes, of course that all sounds very creative and I too like the idea of coming up with inventive solutions to problems... but this unnecessarily complicated and frustrating. And if you look carefully at many of the photos online of the tracks in a loop configuration they strike me as defying the laws of physics. Lots of pictures but very few videos should have been a warning to me. The slightest bump, whether from something you have under the tracks or the transition from floor to rug will cause the cars to launch off the tracks. Really, the only practical thing these tracks can be used for is racing a couple of cars down in a straight line with (here's the creative part) a ramp at the end. That's it. Everything else is an exercise in frustration that has everything to do with the limitations of the product and little to do with creativity or imagination. Honestly, my son has had a way more enjoyable (and creative) time with a bag of the old school orange Hot Wheels tracks. These allow many different configurations as well as ramps and loops that actually (consistently) work. I've never written a review on Amazon and I hate the fact my first one is so negative but these have been a big disappointment to my family and I hope to save other families from similar frustration.