*THE RTT Owners Thread (With BS)*

these are 899 now, free shipping to a 4WP, I may go this route..........will see

 

@JimboAnz there was a Tepui Ayer on the Greensboro craigslist for around $700 or so a few weeks back

 

Schwing, going to search there now , thx

 

I've seen good things about the Smittybilt tents. I saw one on Amazon for like $845 + free shipping. I might have gone this route if I had seen the favorable reviews of them before getting my CVT.

I'm sure the quality is less but how much is the question.

 

Can't put a price tag on the customer service CVT has offered to everyone on TW though....

 

Last minute game changer, going with an Iguana Tent, same one @Acerwin got, great people, great price

 

Very true but I wonder if it's worth $600+ for customer service...

All these tents. ALL of them are coming from the same one or two factories over in China. I mean a lot of them are even the same size and pattern. So what it boils to is you're paying for the little details like hardware changes and fabric changes on some of the "ruggedized" and maybe a different floor material and customer service.

Sometimes it makes sense to weigh your options and say you know I really don't need to call my tent company every day and I can figure this out on my own or maybe you don't use your tent that often and won't need replacement parts often.

 

This is not correct information. Yes a lot of the new "cookie-cutter" brands are copying designs and dimensions, but lots of differences in materials and quality of construction. And there are dozens of factories making them. It's not nearly as simple as one place making everything and slapping a different logo on them.

 

Can you get me the correct info then? I've looked at all the tent companies I can find and they all seem to have the exact same model tents. The only exceptions I see are the big 3 that have additional models.

 

Plus levels of QC scrutiny and agreements probably.

 

I've heard that all of these RTT's come from the same company in China, but not once have we actually seen proof of this. IT maybe true and maybe not. It could be similar situation to the Yeti vs. Walmart tumblers. But for me, i'm already spending a lot of money on the tent, so I wanted the customer service and guarantee that if something were to go wrong they would help me out.

 

I really hate to disagree but I actually think a lot of times it is that simple.

I'm sure the quality control that CVT, ARB, EZ, Tepui pays for (in China) is passed on in their final price. I get that when someone orders a big name tent they will get a better quality tent but it's not like if I'm buying a hand made in the U.S.A. tent instead of a Chinese made one. They are all made in China and all I was saying was that you have to take that into account when deciding on how much the "extras" mean to you.

 

I just gave you correct info in my last post. Most of you have probably noticed that new brands of RTTs have exploded the last few years. These companies saw the popularity of the tents and wanted to jump in the game. New factories (literally dozens) looked at brands who had already done the design and engineering work and flat out copied what they were seeing. It seems like each new brand that shows up offers a cheaper price point than the last one. (.i.e. smittybuilt) and that low price comes at the cost of something else. It's almost always poorer quality materials and lower quality construction and craftsmanship. The reason you see so many tents that look essentially the same is that they are just copying each other. It's easy to copy something. It's much more difficult to actually innovate and improve products.

 

Maybe @Cascadia Tents can add further insight to what @Box Rocket is saying?

 

That's like saying a person in China that is looking to buy a car could get the same thing whether they buy a Chevy Corvette or a Saturn Vue. They're both made in the USA, must be the same.

 

I quoted your original post not the edited version... sorry. And I think it's a possibility that you're being a little biased because of your connections with Tepui?

Any way I didn't mean to ruffle any feathers and I love my CVT but since owning it in the last month I've also had a first hand chance to see one of the "copy cat" tent brands and they really aren't that different...

 

no feathers ruffled, and it's no secret that I'm associated with Tepui but that doesn't make the information biased. I'd say the same thing about CVT. The provide a VERY different tent than one from 'brand X' and it's going to show in their quality when compared to one of the cookie cutters.

 

I've formed a different opinion based on looking at my CVT vs. a "cookie cutter import" first hand. My CVT still wins because of the over hang pattern, got the annex included, and their amazing customer service but as far as the raw materials used I didn't see a huge leap. I have a base model CVT so maybe that's why and one of their top tier models might have been different I have no clue about that.

 

Sorry guys, hope I didnt start a sheetstorm, I am excited to get into my first RTT