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Bought Aug 2010, 1st trip - Belgium + France 2wks.

We bought this tent last month after extensive research and falling in love with the look and quality...  However I think either we are just unlucky, or ours has a bad dose of Chinese gremlins...???

We erected it in the garden just prior to our first trip to Europe and found two side guy rope anchor points (triangle fabric with guy ropes) sewn in upside down meaning they pointed skywards, a nut missing from the side porch pole - we had to tie it on, two inside storage pockets not sewn in at all (seam just missed! Main seam from one side of tent to other has only just been sewn in, has rough edge hanging (not hemmed tidy) and lastly... When we tried to erect the front extension we have the same problems that others have talked about on here, it doesn’t fit properly due to the side porch pole clips getting in the way?

Don’t get me wrong we love the tent design, but after spending this amount of money you expect better quality control...! Anyone else suffering from a case of Chinese gremlins...??? Please tell me it's not JUST US?

Our dealers are collecting this week and sending off to be repaired...?  Yes I did say repaired, apparently there are no more available? But this doesn’t solve the extension problem, did you get any joy from contacting Outwell?

Only problem I had with mine was that when zipping in the groundsheet the zip kept catching the spare fabric underneath & jamming but I trimmed off the excess and no problems since. We had terrible rain on our last 2 trips and it withstood the roaring wind tremendously, higlhy recommended resiliant tent! Out tent does however seem to attract wildlife..............rabbits chewed through the 2nd time we used it and the next time a squirrel entered via door mesh in the side and then exited via the vent mesh at the back, tucked in to some rather nice bisuits en route! My hubbie is not a natural camping lover, a little persuasion is required for each trip and so now we move all foodstuffs to the car each night, what a palava! I have looked to purchase the extension, is it worth the extra money? Advice gladly received

PJ

Hi pollyjean,                                    

Sorry to hear about your wildlife adventures. We think it's worth it, because it gives so much extra space, we bought a folding kitchen stand with a hanging larder (might help keep out the wildlife) you can sometimes see these on ebay? 

My OH would still like to buy another extension with a closed off front to keep out the really bad weather. Just to extend the time we go away? Maybe even one from one of their polyester tents if we can find one? If anyone knows of one that fits and that’s closed at the front?  

Hmm, I wish I'd found this site before sending a long message to Outwell (which they haven't responded to after two weeks!)

My 2011 extension doesn't seem to fit my 2010 Trout Lake 4 tent for two reasons:-

The first being the rainsafe door canopy pole being in the way (as identified by Rt2010) this looks hopeless and is basically Outwell not updating the extension to cater for the updated tent - poor really.

But I also have another issue which is that the four velcro tabs on the extension seem to line up exactly with the four pole clips on the tent, i.e. they are stitched in the only position that prevents them from being fixed around the tent pole.

Has anyone else come accross this?

If anyone with a TL4 has time could they please measure the distance up the canvas from the grey/green join to the centre of the velcro tabs and the same for the tent clips (if that makes any sense) so that I can work out whether the tent or the extension is faulty.

When new my tent also had some issues out-of-the-bag including missing loops or loops on the wrong side of the canvas!!!, missing nut, stitching coming undone etc.

I really like the tent but the QA is not all it could be and Outwell having no phone contact number doesn't help.

Many thanks in advance