Research
Sim Racing Owner Report 2026: 73 Products Rated by 3,168 Owners
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What this is. 3,168 verified owners of 73 sim racing products, from wheels to VR headsets. We read 5,145 YouTube comments under 280 review videos and classified each one: is this person an owner, what did they think, and what went wrong. The full dataset is free to download and reuse with credit.
Five Findings
- The best rated product with at least 30 owners is a shifter. 92% of 57 Thrustmaster TH8A owners were positive and one was negative. The Simagic Alpha Mini (91%) and Heusinkveld Sprint pedals (90%) follow.
- Direct drive owners report far fewer failures. In one batch of 592 wheel owners, belt and gear wheel owners reported 2.4 hardware failures per 100 owners. Direct drive owners reported 0.3. They reported more price and compatibility problems instead.
- Paying more rarely bought a happier owner. Logitech G29 72% against Logitech G923 63%, MOZA R5 85% against MOZA R9 70%, Thrustmaster T150 67% against Thrustmaster T128 59%, Thrustmaster T300 RS 78% against Thrustmaster T248 73%. In each pair the cheaper or older product rated higher.
- Every category has its own failure mode. 70% of monitor stand problems were fit. Half of VR problems were comfort or clarity. 54% of pedal problems were build quality.
- The lowest rated products with at least 30 owners were the Cammus C5 (43%), Pimax Crystal (47%) and Trak Racer TR80 (48%).
What Goes Wrong, by Category
| Category | Owners | Problems reported | Top problem (share) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wheels (first batch, 11 models) | 592 | 115 | build quality (29%) |
| Pedals | 405 | 104 | build quality (54%) |
| Wheel stands | 187 | 63 | flex or wobble (27%) |
| Cockpits | 241 | 85 | flex or wobble (27%) |
| Shifters | 216 | 69 | feel (17%) |
| Handbrakes | 185 | 74 | build quality (28%) |
| Wheel rims | 209 | 52 | feel (21%) |
| Tactile | 191 | 49 | mounting or fit (29%) |
| Monitor stands | 102 | 47 | mounting or fit (70%) |
| VR | 178 | 60 | comfort or clarity (50%) |
All 73 Products
Sorted by share of positive owners. Products with fewer than 30 owners are marked, and their percentages move a lot with a few comments.
| Product | Category | Owners | Positive | Negative | Failure reports |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alpinestars Tech-1 K gloves (small sample) | Gloves | 5 | 100% | 0 | 0 |
| Thrustmaster TH8A | Shifters | 57 | 92% | 1 | 0 |
| Simagic Alpha Mini | Wheels | 59 | 91% | 2 | 0 |
| Heusinkveld Sprint | Pedals | 64 | 90% | 2 | 4 |
| SimHub tactile setup | Tactile | 37 | 90% | 2 | 0 |
| MOZA R3 | Wheels | 52 | 86% | 3 | 1 |
| Fanatec sim racing gloves (small sample) | Gloves | 9 | 86% | 1 | 0 |
| MOZA R5 | Wheels | 70 | 85% | 4 | 0 |
| AuraSound AST-2B-4 Pro (small sample) | Tactile | 20 | 84% | 3 | 1 |
| Next Level Racing F-GT Lite | Cockpits | 54 | 83% | 2 | 0 |
| MOZA KS Wheel | Wheel rims | 38 | 82% | 4 | 1 |
| Logitech RS50 | Wheels | 98 | 79% | 10 | 2 |
| Dayton Audio BST-1 | Tactile | 42 | 79% | 5 | 2 |
| Fanatec Gran Turismo DD Pro | Wheels | 63 | 78% | 3 | 0 |
| Thrustmaster T300 RS | Wheels | 55 | 78% | 7 | 0 |
| Trak Racer monitor stand | Monitor stands | 34 | 77% | 3 | 0 |
| Logitech Pro Racing Pedals | Pedals | 67 | 76% | 6 | 0 |
| Simagic GT Neo | Wheel rims | 37 | 76% | 1 | 0 |
| Fanatec CSL Elite Steering Wheel P1 | Wheel rims | 52 | 75% | 8 | 0 |
| ButtKicker Gamer Plus | Tactile | 50 | 75% | 4 | 0 |
| Next Level Racing Wheel Stand 2.0 | Wheel stands | 46 | 75% | 2 | 0 |
| MOZA SR-P | Pedals | 36 | 74% | 4 | 1 |
| Budget sim racing gloves | Gloves | 30 | 74% | 3 | 0 |
| Thrustmaster T248 | Wheels | 60 | 73% | 4 | 4 |
| MOZA ES Wheel | Wheel rims | 47 | 73% | 2 | 0 |
| Next Level Racing Wheel Stand Lite (small sample) | Wheel stands | 24 | 73% | 4 | 0 |
| Logitech G29 | Wheels | 69 | 72% | 9 | 1 |
| HP Reverb G2 | VR | 49 | 71% | 4 | 0 |
| Simagic P1000 | Pedals | 53 | 70% | 5 | 2 |
| MOZA R9 | Wheels | 39 | 70% | 6 | 0 |
| GT Omega Prime | Cockpits | 39 | 69% | 4 | 0 |
| Meta Quest 3S (small sample) | VR | 20 | 69% | 5 | 0 |
| ButtKicker Gamer Pro | Tactile | 42 | 68% | 9 | 1 |
| GT Omega APEX Wheel Stand | Wheel stands | 41 | 68% | 8 | 0 |
| Thrustmaster T150 | Wheels | 90 | 67% | 11 | 5 |
| HORI Racing Wheel Apex | Wheels | 56 | 67% | 6 | 1 |
| Playseat Challenge | Wheel stands | 55 | 67% | 5 | 0 |
| Fanatec ClubSport Handbrake | Handbrakes | 39 | 67% | 10 | 1 |
| Logitech G920 | Wheels | 73 | 66% | 14 | 1 |
| MOZA GS V2P | Wheel rims | 35 | 66% | 3 | 0 |
| Thrustmaster T-GT II | Wheels | 77 | 65% | 7 | 0 |
| Next Level Racing GTLite | Cockpits | 60 | 65% | 10 | 0 |
| Bigscreen Beyond | VR | 30 | 65% | 3 | 0 |
| Generic USB handbrake | Handbrakes | 42 | 64% | 6 | 2 |
| Logitech G923 | Wheels | 62 | 63% | 11 | 1 |
| Fanatec CSL DD | Wheels | 54 | 63% | 10 | 0 |
| Simagic DS-8X | Shifters | 35 | 63% | 8 | 3 |
| MOZA R12 | Wheels | 34 | 63% | 6 | 0 |
| Thrustmaster TSS Handbrake | Handbrakes | 34 | 63% | 5 | 0 |
| Thrustmaster T-LCM | Pedals | 47 | 62% | 7 | 3 |
| Sparco Hypergrip gloves (small sample) | Gloves | 22 | 62% | 6 | 0 |
| Sim-Lab GT1 Evo | Cockpits | 37 | 61% | 3 | 0 |
| PXN V10 | Wheels | 72 | 59% | 15 | 1 |
| Thrustmaster T128 | Wheels | 60 | 59% | 11 | 0 |
| Asetek Forte pedals | Pedals | 40 | 59% | 5 | 2 |
| Fanatec ClubSport Shifter SQ | Shifters | 40 | 59% | 9 | 3 |
| Logitech Driving Force Shifter | Shifters | 44 | 58% | 9 | 1 |
| OMP KS gloves (small sample) | Gloves | 7 | 57% | 2 | 0 |
| Fanatec CSL Pedals LC | Pedals | 60 | 56% | 14 | 0 |
| Meta Quest 3 | VR | 44 | 56% | 10 | 0 |
| Simagic HBS handbrake | Handbrakes | 33 | 56% | 5 | 1 |
| Marada Racing Wheel Stand (small sample) | Wheel stands | 21 | 56% | 6 | 0 |
| MOZA CRP | Pedals | 38 | 55% | 5 | 0 |
| MOZA HBP Handbrake | Handbrakes | 37 | 55% | 7 | 0 |
| MOZA HGP Shifter | Shifters | 40 | 52% | 4 | 3 |
| GT Omega triple monitor stand (small sample) | Monitor stands | 16 | 50% | 4 | 0 |
| Trak Racer TR80 | Cockpits | 33 | 48% | 9 | 0 |
| Pimax Crystal | VR | 35 | 47% | 11 | 2 |
| Cammus C5 | Wheels | 38 | 43% | 8 | 0 |
| Desk mounted triple monitor arm (small sample) | Monitor stands | 10 | 43% | 3 | 0 |
| Next Level Racing Lite Monitor Stand (small sample) | Monitor stands | 19 | 41% | 6 | 0 |
| Playseat Evolution (small sample) | Cockpits | 18 | 41% | 5 | 0 |
| Next Level Racing Free Standing Monitor Stand (small sample) | Monitor stands | 23 | 33% | 10 | 0 |
Download and Reuse
The data and charts are licensed CC BY 4.0. Use them in articles, videos and forum posts. Please credit ToolPicker Sim Racing Owner Report 2026 with a link to this page.
Embed the chart:
<a href="https://toolpicker.co/sim-racing-owner-report-2026/"><img src="https://toolpicker.co/img/rp1.png" alt="Best and worst rated sim racing gear 2026, ToolPicker Owner Report" width="1200"></a><br>Source: <a href="https://toolpicker.co/sim-racing-owner-report-2026/">ToolPicker Sim Racing Owner Report 2026</a>Method
- Sources. Comments under 280 YouTube review videos, three to six per product, collected in September 2026
- Classification. Each comment was classified by a language model for whether the writer owns the product, whether they are talking about the product rather than the video, their sentiment, and the type of problem reported. Only comments scored as owners count
- Positive share is positive owners divided by positive, mixed and negative owners. Questions and off-topic comments are excluded
- Failure reports count owners describing a unit that stopped working or arrived broken
Limitations
- YouTube commenters are not a random sample of owners. People with strong opinions post more
- Complaint categories were classified in several batches with slightly different definitions. Compare problem types within a category, not across categories. The positive share used the same definition throughout
- Failure counts are small, often under five per product. Treat them as signals, not failure rates
- We did not test any of this hardware ourselves
Questions, corrections or the raw data: hello@toolpicker.co. Product guides built on this data: wheels, gear, head to head.