I want to get into not very serious sim racing so I need to buy my first setup. Direct drives are not officially available here and import taxes are so high that things like Moza R5 or Fanatec CSL DD cost around $900-1200 (if I buy 3 pedal set too which is necessary) which is not very acceptable. There are quite a few deals on used belt-driven wheels though and it looks like the ones in the title are the best ones I can get (the price is around $500-600 for full base+wheel+pedals bundles). Though I’m not sure if the Fanatec one has table clamps included which is very important for me and can be quite a hassle if they aren’t. There’s also stuff like T300 RS GT and T248 (even new ones) but they are significantly worse afaik so I don’t say much about them. Anyways, what do I choose in this case? I mostly care about balance (e. g. T248 is powerful but slow which doesn’t allow drifting) and quality of FFB. I don’t need any load cell pedals (physical disability -> not enough strength to use them) or console compatibility (I play only on PC) which makes the choice even harder.
EDIT: I found a way to get a DD for an almost acceptable price. Now I’m mostly looking at Fanatec CSL DD
Have you considered building one of the open source wheel projects like openFFBoard (github page)?
You get direct drive power with open source software and can source a motor and parts more easily. OpenFFBoard has a custom controller and driver which you can buy but you can also make it work with dev boards and odrive/vesc if your ability to order parts is limited. The ffboard does make it easier if you can buy just that one part though https://www.elecrow.com/open-ffboard-stm32f407-usb-interface-only.html
That said, and to answer your question as best I can, I used a T300rs for a while and it was fine, but both thrustmaster and fanatec suffered (and still do a bit) from some reliability issues. But no belt drive wheel is ever going to compare to a direct drive wheel.
It’s not like I can make a wheel myself. I can’t even lift a reasonable DD base. Anyways I found a way to get direct drives here. The prices are still not great but the reliability and upgrade path may be worth it. For now my main option is Fanatec CSL DD 5 nm. I can get that upgraded PSU if I need to and in the worst case I can just swap the entire base.
Another question now: doee that wheel have any common issues? Getting a warranty repair here might be close to impossible
Ah, I didn’t want to make any negative assumptions about your disability. Yeah if you can get an off the shelf one that would be much easier. I have no experience with the CSL series (or any commercial wheel, I went from the t300 to a 15nm peak ffboard+odrive wheel), but I hear they are pretty good. What you will get from the more powerful and expensive models is increased detail at low power in addition to the obvious higher output as far as I understand.
Afaik more powerful bases give a much better feel of high speed corners and the grip as well as improved self-straightening effect. These are very important things. Though I prefer offroading and driving slower cars so it shouldn’t be much of a problem for me. And also I heard Cammus C5 heavily uses OpenFFB technologies and it’s quite competitive or even arguably the best budget DD wheel (unavailable here unfortunately) so I guess your setup is really good too