Things I WISH I KNEW Before Buying a Roof Top Tent

i spent four thousand dollars on a rooftop tent that had a different mattress size than was advertised i want to help you avoid this mistake and others by going through some critical things to look at before you buy a rooftop tent hey there i'm will from metro to rome thanks for joining us today on this channel we go on epic adventures we do rig modifications and installs and we do gear reviews but today we're talking about rooftop tent let's get into it first off let's cover the different types of rooftop tents there are soft shells hybrids hard shell pop-ups and hard shell wedges so i'm gonna go through the pros and cons of each really really quickly before we get to the list the first is soft shells the great thing about soft shells is that they're affordable they're lighter on your rig they're generally roomier and you can attach things like an annex to them that give you even more space than just what's in the tent the cons are they're slow to set up they're slow to tear down they can be really really dirty both to set up and tear down there's more drag because they're kind of like a lego block on top of your rig so not very aerodynamic and they're super loud in the wind so if you're in a soft shell tent rooftop tent and it's there's any kind of weather outside it's really really loud so those are the pros and cons now let's talk about hybrid tents so think of like the eye camper style of tent that's somewhere between a hard shell and a soft shell the pros of a hybrid is that their footprint is a little bit smaller and they fold out to be almost as big as a soft shell although not quite they're better for the weather because they have the hard shell and the fabric is generally stretched a little bit tighter and there's generally lots of headroom which is really really nice the cons are they're not as big as a soft shell they generally take up the entire rack and they're generally quite a bit heavier than a soft shell okay let's talk about hard shell pop-ups hardshell pop-ups are hard shell rooftop tents that pop straight up the pros are that they're super fast to set up storage is generally good you can generally leave your bedding in them they're quieter in storms because the fabric is stretched tight and it has that hard shell the hard shell sheds precipitation generally really really well the cons are the ceiling the headroom is generally a little bit lower opening and closing them can be a bit of an issue because you have to tuck in all the way around and sometimes that wears and tears the fabric a little bit over time there are generally a lot more expensive than a soft shell they're heavier and there's a pretty small sleeping area okay now let's talk about the last type of rooftop tent which is the hard shell wedges now the pros are they're generally really fast to set up sometimes you can put a rack on top which is really great they are they do really well in storms because they have that hard shell and it's stretched really really tight with some shocks on each side they shed precipitation really well because of the angle of that wedge and the headroom is generally better than a pop-up tent cons are that sometimes you can't store all your betting in them they're really low profile which is another pro but sometimes you can't throw all your betting in it which is definitely a cons especially for us they're really expensive and there's just not a lot of room just like a pop-up like you got you know maybe you've got 55 inches or 60 inches of room and that's it so if you like to sleep with someone else and snuggle they're fantastic if you like to have your own room they're not so great so those are the pros and cons of the different types of rooftop tents now let's get into the critical things to look for and ask about before you buy one number one check the size of the mattress and the sleeping area this is a big one so for me i spent four thousand dollars on a tent that had a mattress that was five inches smaller than was advertised now i contacted the company about it after the fact they updated the website so it's it's more correct now but i gotta tell you when i got my 10 and it was smaller i was really bummed out a little angry and it really kind of affected how i looked at the rest of the tent for a while so i don't want you to go through that so what you should do is validate with the company over chat over the phone over email exactly how big the sleeping area is but more importantly the mattress because sometimes they quote the sleeping area as kind of everything that's inside or under the shell so really focus on the mattress size that'll tell you exactly how much room you have to sleep on okay number two is the mattress thickness this is another one that was a miss for me so a lot of these tents advertise mattresses that are two inches or three inches of high density foam and it's actually a selling point for them so if you're looking on the website and you're like oh this tent is the same as this one but this one has a three inch mattress and this one has a two inch mattress well i'm gonna go with the three inch mattress that's not necessarily the case contact them and validate them exactly how thick that mattress is because we got our tent it was advertised as a two inch mattress and it was only an inch and a half and it was advertised as high density foam and i don't know what high density foam is i haven't done like a technical examination but it doesn't feel like high density foam and and my tent is not the only one to have that happen my best buddy chris also bought a tent and and the mattress was advertised as three inches which was a big selling point for him and then when he got it home he measured it and it was less than an inch and a half and these are from reputable companies so contact them validate how thick that mattress is because sometimes they make mistakes on those spec sheets on the website and you're thinking you're buying something that you're really not number three make sure it will fit on your rack now let me tell you a story about my good buddy tim who made this mistake tim bought a smittybilt overlander xl gen 2 without measuring his baja rack that has a raised basket on the front and when he got the tent he had some major problems so he had to wind up using six inch spacers to get his tent level on his rack now he's making it work but it is not ideal so make sure that you've got enough surface area on your rig to mount your tent number four will your bedding fit inside when the tent is closed for us this is a massive issue we have a jeep doesn't have a lot of room we don't really have the space to carry sleeping bags and pillows and things inside so it's got to go up top in the tent now when we bought our smittybilt we knew that we could leave the bidding inside because it was well documented on youtube however when looking for a hard shell replacement we made sure to ask each and every company whether or not betting would fit inside when it was closed because not all companies have this well documented like smittybilt did for example i really thought i was going to get the roof nest condor xl hybrid rooftop tent it's a beautiful tent it's got enough room for the whole family but it looked like it was a low pro design so i reached out directly and i asked roof nest if you could leave your bedding inside to which they replied no you cannot you've got to keep it in your rig and i am so glad i asked that because that was a deal breaker for me all right number five weight this is so important not all rooftop tents are created equally when it comes to weight so first make sure you know how heavy the tent is and validate it with the company or the tent manufacturer so you know exactly what you're getting into then check the dynamic weight rating on your rack or crossbars not just the weight capacity the dynamic weight capacity and the difference is the dynamic weight capacity is how much your rack can handle when it's moving versus the regular weight capacity which is just how much weight your rat can handle when your car is still now if you're off-roading with the rooftop tent you want to give yourself a bit of a buffer there so for example my smittybilt overlander xl was 145 pounds when we bought it and the dynamic weight capacity for my rhino rack pioneer platform is 265 pounds so i knew i had a lot of room to play there but when i was looking for a new tent i looked really hard at the tough stuff stealth now this is a beautiful aluminum-sided hybrid tent however it weighs 225 pounds and so for me i knew that my rack could only handle 265 and 225 was just pushing it a little too close for me so i wound up not getting that tent which is one of the reasons i really like the tent that i got which is the desert armor tank xl because it's aluminum sided but it only weighs 156 pounds so it's only 10 pounds heavier than my smittybilt so i know it'll work on the rack i know how the vehicle is going to feel when i'm driving it and i have plenty of dynamic weight capacity left for off-roading and driving at 70 miles an hour down the highway and all those things okay and the last but maybe the most important of all of these is customer service so really do your research on the company that you're doing business with and find out how they approach customer service and the way in which you can find that out is by asking them all these questions so pay attention to how they respond to you the kind of information they give you and whether or not they approach these questions proactively partnering with you finding solutions or they get defensive and they withdraw from you that's really really telling on how they're going to be to work with as a company and it's important that you know that because rooftop tents we put them through a lot so we drive off road there's getting dust and rain and dirt and rocks and all that stuff and so sometimes we need to replace parts for example my smittybilt overlander xl there were some plastic parts that started to break on it and so i went to order new ones but i couldn't find the parts anywhere so i reached directly out to smittybilt they gave me some part numbers but i couldn't buy through them and the retailer didn't have it and i went back three or four times and we're talking about a 20 part that's critical for me to set up my tent but it was really hard for me to get that now let me give you an example on the other side of this my best buddy chris bought an ovs bushfield hybrid hard shell tent and when he bought it they were out of stock and so he was worried they wasn't going to get it for a long time and so what they did is they sent him a care package ahead of time that had some stuff in it he could put in his tent and it was a really nice gesture for them to say hey we're thinking about you even though you can't get our tent right now and it turns out he and i both ordered our tents on the same day mine was in stock his was not in stock he got his tent a week before i did and they gave him updates every step of the way and were really responsive when he was reaching back out for questions or issues and all those things so that's an example of customer service that's really important to a to a company versus customer service that's a little bit more defensive and withdrawn we're not knocking smittybilt they make fantastic products that's just my experience with their customer service so my general advice is not to take at face value everything that you see on the website when you're shopping for a rooftop tent these companies make mistakes so reach out to them and ask them some of these things that we talked about in this video and maybe you have some more things that are that are really important to you engage how they react with you gauge how they interact with you gauge how they give you information or don't or how you can solve problems with them that'll be really telling about your overall experience with that company when it comes to actually spending your hard-earned money buying a rooftop tent for two in-depth reviews of rooftop tents that we've used so far you can click on the screen right now one is of the smittybilt overlander xl which is a tent that we spent about 50 nights in before we reviewed it and the other is for the desert armor tank xl which gives our experience from buying it installing it getting it on the trail and our initial thoughts of it so there's two really great videos you can click on right now until next time i'm will from venture to rome thanks for watching

Channel: Venture2Roam Overlanding

Views: 65,927

Keywords: Things to know BEFORE buying a Roof Top Tent, overlanding, overland, offroad, camping, weekend overland, car camping, Roof top tent buying Guide, Rooftop tent buying guide, Before you buy a Rooftoptent, overlanding for beginners, overlanding camping, pros and cons of rooftop tents, pros adn cons of rooftop tents, rugged bound supply, ikamper, desert armor, freespirit, rooftop tents, types of rooftop tents, smittybilt rooftop tent

Id: gsucsh-OGOk

Length: 11min 41sec (701 seconds)

Published: Mon May 09 2022