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On impluse I bought the last Diablo 600 from Go Outdoors at there bargin price £150. Now i am not sure i have done the right thing, we needed a bigger tent than our old venture 500 but 2 sites i have tried to book for this August have said the size of the Diablo is too large for there pitches. I am now thinking of paying the extra and swapping it for a Montana 6, better pitch size and easier to put up, buts lots more money :(

I do like the look of both tents but frustrated if the Diablo is going to limit my camping options, then those reviews of monty's leaking also worry me.

we had the diablo 600 and like you bought it on impulse a couple of years ago 3 days before we went away. i hated it. the sleeping pods sloped and i spent the week batting the wall of the sleeping pod away. i really wanted the monty 6 and had done for years but couldnt afford it so any tent we bought never measured up to the monty.

we sold it to a friend who thinks its great though and they love the diablo and find it easy to put up and i think they can do it in about 20mins!! it took us nearly 2 hours lol.

we found a good deal online for the monty at the end of last season and got from go outdoors for £280 i think as they price matched it. they also price matched the extension for us too. great.  we have only put it up once so we too are hoping that it doesnt leak.   i think i read a message on here the other night that someone had got a monty 6 from outdoor megastore. if you decide to swap the tent, print the page out and take it to go outdoors and ask them to pricematch.

enjoy your hols whatever you decide to do.

Thats a good idea about the price match but its still nearly double the Vango cost might just bite the bullet and do it although still cant decide between the two tents.

The pitch size of the diablo is about 7m x 8m whereas the Monty is about 6m x 4m guess it would get me on more sites

I'm so excited our new monty has just arrived and is still in the box in the lounge!!!!!  We got a 2008 model on ebay and paid £274 including postage which I thought was a really good deal. Always worth looking on ebay!!

Otherwise the next best price I found was on the tent team website at £289 but I've just checked their website and they don't appear to have any in stock!!

Hope you get what you want!!!

Mark

As I understand things, it's not so much the floor-space area that's the issue but the length-by-width measurements.  In that sense the Monty is a more compact (as well as more regular in shape) tent and, therefore, less likely to fall foul of sites that have very regular pitches.

I tend to book at sites that do not have strictly marked-out pitches and so shape and size of tent is not such an issue.

Have now found a few sites where the size of the diablo does not seem to be a problem.

Maybe i should try the Diablo for this year and see how i get on with it and perhaps move up to a Monty when i can afford it. I do like my views when camping so i hope the inside is not too cavenous because the Monty does seem nice and light inside.

We love our Diablo but I too was concered about the space it needs due to the shape. I agree that the tunnel tents are much more efficient in terms of space, but what I liked about the Diablo is that it feels so bright and spacious inside - epecially with the windows open. We haven't had any problems so far finding lovely sites that will accommodate it - but we tend to go for the no marked pitches kind of place, and not requiring EHU makes it easier too. All it takes a a read of the reviews or a quick telephone call and you're sorted.

I think maybe you should use your Diablo this year and see how you get on - then at the end of the season you can decide what to do, and if you do decide to replace it then hopefully you should get a good deal.

I normally just drive around and find a campsite that i like which is usually a big field but the last time we did this the OH complained that she couldn't use her hair dryer let alone anything else lol.

So after buying the Diablo we decided to go more commercial with EHU cause also my son and her granddaugher are with us, but after that were off to Shell Island and back to basics.

Wouldn't it be great if the advanced campsite seach included something like pitch size or the members included there tent details at the time of staying when writing reviews ( I shall in future)

I have included the 2 sites which would except the Diablo to the "campsites which except large tents" post.

Thank you to all the members who have responded to this post. I think this is a great website but it is only as good as the people on here.

Cheers

Ron