A note about Cascadia Vehicle Tents

[Cowboy59]

Like approximately 80 other members of this forum, Tacoma World and Expedition Portal I participated in the group buy put on by CVT in the Spring/Summer of 2013. I purchased a Mt. McKinley and their largest awning. When I received the tent I noticed that it was maroon in color as opposed to the tan one that I ordered. I contacted Bobby and informed him of the mess up. Bobby told me that he would send a new tent out right away. There was only one problem though, I was leaving on a three week trip and the new tent would never make it in time. Bobby told me to go ahead and use the maroon tent and we would settle up after my trip. I thought this was pretty cool of him knowing that he was going to get a three week used tent back and send me a brand new tent. My family of five used the McKinley on our trip and it was nothing short of amazing. With three young children it was always a real chore to put up the Kodiak Canvas tent when they "helped." With the McKinley setup was a breeze and the kids couldn't even reach the tent to "help." We returned from our trip. The only casualty was a bent pole on the awning. I contacted Bobby and he arranged to ship me a new McKinley and a replacement pole for the awning. About two weeks later the tent arrived and there were two very large dents in the bottom of it from the shipping company lifting it with a forklift. I refused the package and called Bobby. Bobby said they would ship another one out. About three weeks later the next tent arrived. This time the tent had two large holes in the bottom where the shipping company had driven forklift arms into the aluminum skin. I refused the package and again called Bobby. Bobby confirmed my address and told me he would call me back. Later in the week I received that call. Bobby informed me that he was driving from Oregon to Pennsylvania for a large outdoor show. Bobby told me that he would personally deliver a tent to my house after the outdoor show. Now I am no geography major but I was sure that the southern side of Cincinnati was not anywhere close to being on the way from Pennsylvania back to Oregon. In fact, with the snowy conditions it ended up being about 10 hours out of the way. Bobby called me yesterday and was at my house 30 minutes later. He took the old tent and delivered a brand new CVT Mt. McKinley directly to my door. I had doubts about paying the price for a Mt. McKinley but after receiving such amazing customer service I would no doubt make that same purchase again. Bobby's attitude throughout the entire ordeal was never negative towards me, which would have been easy to understand with the main point of my dissatisfaction being the color of my tent! I am fairly certain that I will never experience such a high level of customer service from a business again in my lifetime. I am floored by the level of service Bobby provides to his customers, not to mention his products are pretty darn nice too. I am probably one of the cheapest people on this forum but I have always believed that you get what you pay for when it comes to product quality. It is an undeniable fact that if you buy a tent from CVT you are also receiving the backing of a customer satisfaction oriented business, a rarity in today's marketplace. If you are considering the purchase of a rtt I would highly recommend CVT.
Bobby did not ask me to write this, nor does he even know that I did it. I just thought you guys should know what kind of man runs CVT.

 

[doug720]

First rate custormer service from a standup company for a first rate customer. How the world should work!

 

[concretejungle]

now that again, is why i would support him if he had a product ready for me! Great customer service.

 

[Est1980]

Great to hear, I was a little apprehensive... Wasn't quite sure how the tent quality and customer service compared to the big guys, but after reading a few similar threads I'm sold. I'm actually planning on picking one up in the upcoming group buy. Luckily I'll circumvent the shipping hassles as I plan to pick it up in person.

 

[TXLX100]

That is outstanding.

 

[80t0ylc]

Just for the record, I'm another well satisfied customer of Bobby Culpepper and CVT. He takes care of his customers in a way that shows he cares. John Day, OR is not near as far as Cincinnati from Bend, but he drove out a replacement tent to me, also. My 1st Mt. Baker had a manufacturing defect on one of the strut mounts and the whole tent was replaced and mounted with no questions asked. Also, even though the current tents are made in China, Bobby has chosen high quality materials including tent fabric that does not leak like some of the other tents you might have read about.

 

[spressomon]

Can't wait to see what he comes up with for his USA fabbed RTTs!

 

[mcgaskins]

That's why I can't wait for the group buy again this year I missed out last year because I wasn't ready, but this year I definitely am and already have grand camping plans in mind!

 

[Cowboy59]

Just released. Cvt group buy in March.
http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/122653-2014-CVT-Group-buy!?p=1524580#post1524580

 

[Wayneraintree]

Hey Cowboy, nice to see another NKY'ian. I am near Petersburg and happened to be researching tents, nice thread : )

 

[No. 3]

Yet another happy CVT tent owner, Bobby is really great- we had fun hanging out with him a little when we picked up our tent. Recommended w/o equivocation!
Jeff

 

[No. 3]

A thread resurrection to update my thoughts about our Cascadia tent after three+ weeks in it on the Baja peninsula and various other camping trips in CA & NV. First I still love the convenience of having the bed ready in no time and not having it in the cargo area (which gets really dusty after weeks on dirt roads- I am not always good about rolling the window up and more dust than seems right sneaks in through the interior finish panels). Here's the pros & cons:

Pros:
• Convenient, dust free sleeping.
• Being off the ground is nice too- no worries about poisonous whatever in the tent in the desert. (I've had guests in the past in my regular tent.)
• Relatively light and on a slow, heavy HJ60 there isn't much difference with it on or off.
• I'm back at having a dedicated place to sleep without moving crap, setting up a tent or any other hassle.
• Shades the sunroof in the hot Mexican sun.
• Sturdy enough fiberglass molding that I was able to build a surfboard rack and mount it on the tent. The OEM pistons lift and hold up the lid with two boards on the rack though not without help and not at the top of the open arc w/o the supplied pole. Changing the pistons will be an improvement I'll make to accommodate the rack.
• Comfortable mattress- not fancy for sure but firm enough foam that it is comfortable and it seems to be lasting.
• Super warm in cold weather. This thing is a four season tent for sure but that speaks to one of my upcoming cons in hot weather.

Cons:
• The first and worst is that on bad "roads" and 4wd track the tent bangs against the rack and without the winter bags in it pushing up on the lid one of the clamps opened pretty consistently. The clamps I can replace and probably will, the banging I will fix by fastening the tent bottom to the outside edges of the rack. The problem here is that the tracks that are inset in the bottom of the tent to hold the channel that the tent bolts to the rack with are both too close to the center. Spreading them apart would keep the sides from flapping against the rack but maybe allow the middle to bounce. It's annoying and while I was alone in the middle of nowhere my first thought every time it started happening was that something had failed and....
• The fiberglass pole that creates the shade over the back window has started to wear through the tent fabric at its ends- this should have been reinforced for better wear.
• The rear window isn't a door. I think on later models Bobby was going to do this. For me there are two reasons I would like it to be a door- access and ventilation. I have a platform on the back & I would go in that way occasionally (or maybe always & ditch the ladder to save some weight) but more importantly it would be great to have more screened area when it is Sea of Cortez in June hot (that's effing hot & humid BTW).
• The light that came with it was pretty poor and broke in no time, I have since installed a 12" strip of LED under cabinet lights and wired them to the aux battery. Hard to bitch about this though- what tent comes with a light?
• The ladder has started to stick and not close as it once did. It is sort of a pain anyway to get it down and it's sort of heavy by its nature. With a newer tent with the rear door I'd probably leave it home and go up the back to get in. The ladder is also hard on the rain gutter's paint, even wrapped in gaffer's tape.
• That there isn't an elastic cord around the circumference of the tent to draw it in when lowering the tent is kind of a bummer- it's another modification that I'll make which leads into the last con,
• The head side of the tent hangs inward when the tend is open and I had to add a couple of grommets and bungees to guy it out so it doesn't hang in my face when I lay down. This is probably some bad patterning for the tent (I bought a relatively early one) & I would imagine that this has been adjusted in later models that replaced the rear window with a door.

All and all I still feel like I'd do it over again; overall the tent has been great and Bobby was incredibly helpful when we picked it up. I wholeheartedly recommend them to the many (many) people who ask me what the hell that is on my roof. The only improvements that I still plan for the tent are a fan and cleaning up the solar cabling routed through the tent with a J-box and some receptacles. And dimming the light I guess. And, possibly, organizing and entry from the bottom of the tent through the sunroof into the cab of the truck for rainy days when I'm stuck inside.

So that's the longer term update- buy one if you are able!
J

 

[80t0ylc]

Cons:
• The first and worst is that on bad "roads" and 4wd track the tent bangs against the rack and without the winter bags in it pushing up on the lid one of the clamps opened pretty consistently. The clamps I can replace and probably will, the banging I will fix by fastening the tent bottom to the outside edges of the rack. The problem here is that the tracks that are inset in the bottom of the tent to hold the channel that the tent bolts to the rack with are both too close to the center. Spreading them apart would keep the sides from flapping against the rack but maybe allow the middle to bounce. It's annoying and while I was alone in the middle of nowhere my first thought every time it started happening was that something had failed and....

Are you using only 2 bars for your tent? From your pics, it's hard to tell. Before I got my Mt. Baker, I purchased a 3rd Yakima bar to support the RTT and it seems to be very sturdy. When I showed up to pick up my tent, Bobby agreed that for off road bouncing around, the 3rd bar was a good idea. If you stay on pavement & fire improved (or maintained) dirt roads, 2 bars are fine. And for sleeping support, 2 bars are fine (unless you're 300 + lbs). As I suspected and you've confirmed, the constant pounding of serious off road use puts extreme stress on the support structure. Pic of my RTT mounting:

• The fiberglass pole that creates the shade over the back window has started to wear through the tent fabric at its ends- this should have been reinforced for better wear.
• The rear window isn't a door. I think on later models Bobby was going to do this. For me there are two reasons I would like it to be a door- access and ventilation. I have a platform on the back & I would go in that way occasionally (or maybe always & ditch the ladder to save some weight) but more importantly it would be great to have more screened area when it is Sea of Cortez in June hot (that's effing hot & humid BTW).
• The light that came with it was pretty poor and broke in no time, I have since installed a 12" strip of LED under cabinet lights and wired them to the aux battery. Hard to bitch about this though- what tent comes with a light?

Agreed on above points. You might try this combination fan and light that I'm using. Only problem is it bounces on the support pole, but that can easily be remedied with some foam rubber. It's made by Coleman and is in fact made for tent usage, comes also with a stand to set on a table. Light has 2 positions and fan has 2 speeds.

• The ladder has started to stick and not close as it once did. It is sort of a pain anyway to get it down and it's sort of heavy by its nature. With a newer tent with the rear door I'd probably leave it home and go up the back to get in. The ladder is also hard on the rain gutter's paint, even wrapped in gaffer's tape.

If you picked up some sand in your ladder, that might explain the sticking. One of the benefits of my wood step modification to my RTT is provides an excellent place to support the ladder for entrance & exiting the tent. My main concern was for protection and additional support for the bar ends: