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hi does anybody now of any good tent dealers that have tents pitched in their showrooms i have been offered a vango aspen 700dlx brand new for less than 200 quid sounds like a bargain but i would love to be able to veiw this tent before i purchase, i am in south wales but don`t mind if i have to travel to west wales or over the bridge to say bristol or weston area`s. obviously i can`t wait to long or the deal will be gone. thanks in advance

hello  try abc camping swansea  normaly got good display of tents

Abc of swansea have a pretty good showroom.Not good after sales though. Cheers

They have a good display, but REALLY bad after sales service , so beware. There was a huge thread on here last year,lots of people with very bad tent purchase experiences, unbelievably rude staff, they just don't want to know if anything is not right. they try to tell you it's all your fault, you pitched it wrong etc etc. One member here got a really badly damaged khyam tent, a few hundred quids worth,full of holes, when they unpacked it, in front of witnessses, they were on a ukcs rally, at the time, and had their holiday ruined, and no joy from them, I think they ended up in small claims court in the end.

They tried to tell us we had a faulty pump when we returned an airbed after an hour of purchase. we had tried seven different pumps on it!! We were only camping five minutes drive from their shop, and borrowed all the camping neighbours pumps to try it.

only after a good half hour arguing, they were wanting to send it back to manufacturers, without refunding or replacing it, we needed it there and then to sleep on that night. Eventually they gave in as I told them I knew my rights, my contract was with them , not the suppliers, challenged them to blow it up with their own pumps etc,which  they didn't, but tried every trick in the book not to replace it.

Quote: Originally posted by rhondda reg on 21/1/2008

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went to abc on the weekend to have a look at their range of tents and i have to agree about the level of rudeness. the staff just did`nt seem to want to now us. we asked them if they had any brochures on the tents they were selling the answer was a straight "NO" would they be having any in "DON`T KNOW". if i could have read his mind i`m sure he would have been saying leave me alone i`m playing on my computer. then i said "we have £500 pound to spend on a new family tent". the reply came "how may i help sir". all in all worth a trip to see the tents on display but would not buy from them if they can`t be bothered to help me now, how much help would i get if we had a problem with a new purchase.

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Anyone can sell a tent, but I reckon you only get to know if  you are dealing with a good retailer when they deal efficiently and courteously with a problem.

There are good retailers out there - I'd suggest you check out these pages by doing a search.

Best of luck, whatever you decide.