RTIC Coolers

Have a camo soft shell rtic & it works great.

 

I'm envious of those that had good luck with their RTIC's. I scooped up an RTIC 45 during the winter sale on Amazon a few months ago and I was looking forward to good results like others reported. Unfortunately, I must have gotten a bad one but didn't realize it until too late. I had already kept it for a while, taken it on a road trip and started putting some stickers on it before I noticed its poor performance. Which is the point of this post, two things to look out for before using yours in case you need to return it because I wasn't able to return mine due to my own mistakes:

1. The top lip of mine was very uneven. I realize these aren't supposed to be completely water tight but if any water leaks out when tipped on its side that's a clear indication to me that air is getting in/out too which leads to poor performance. I took a level and saw that the lip was wavy leading to the leaking. I used a Dremel to grind down the high points and some JB Weld to build up the low points. It's now pretty much even with very little, if any, water escaping which means it has sealed much better.

2. I did the flashlight test after using it and saw that there were light spots in the insulation. Unlike the point above, nothing can be done to remedy this.

I did my own ice test after my improvement detailed above to my RTIC versus a Coleman Extreme I've had for 10 years and I started with both prechilled. After a given amount of time with exactly the same amount of ice in exactly the same environment I drained the water to use that as a guide to which worked better. Using the same bowl to catch water and after about three days I drained 1.75" of water out of the Coleman and 1.5" of water out of the RTIC. The RTIC performed better but not by enough to say it's a significantly better cooler. It's tougher and looks better but hard to say mine performs better than my Coleman with only a 0.25" difference in ice melt.

Point of this post is to help those that buy RTIC look for the flaws before having to keep it like me. I'm happy for those that have had good luck, I just wasn't one of those people and I should have done some QC of my own before missing the chance to return it.

 

I got to, unfortunately, test out the durability of my RTIC 45 last night. Forgot to strap it down and it felll out of my truck doing about 35-40MPH on a gravel road. Some road rash otherwise she held up good, though it did blow open and spew the contents everywhere.

 

Ohh thats a bummer but $h!t'll buff out! That's a tough ass cooler

 

I have used dry ice. It froze my drinks and exploded a couple, all the seals held up fine, I don't recall a large pressure release when I opened it. The way the lid seal is I would think the pressure could release through it.

 

Been using mine as a secondary beer fridge, it's awesome.

 

Finally put my 65 that I bought during the sale a while back to the test. 40lbs of ice to start and still holding pretty cold 5 days later after a weekend of camping. 1 day pretty much in full sun all day with lots of opening and closing. I'm very happy with the results, by far the best cooler I've ever owned.

 

Wow - I can't believe they make Busch Lite ....

 

Some recent exterior mods to my RTIC. Was in REI the other day and was checking out the Yetis, the old style RTICs are exactly the same thing as the Yetis, no wonder they got sued.

 

Love my rtic 45, held ice for 6 days with me opening it everyday.

 

Dang ok thanks

 

Got a coupon in my email. I like the soft packs.

 

I got the same email today. I already own the biggest soft pack cooler they make. I kinda wanna order a smaller one just because

 

Good deal, Is there a code to use for that offer?

 

No it just comes up with the discounted price on the page.
Sucks the lunchbox soft sides are sold out.

 

I got that email yesterday. Probably gonna buy more stuff I don't need

 

You can have my 40 year old steel Coleman when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.