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Quote: Originally posted by richardh1905 on 16/4/2018

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After much deliberation I recently purchased a Coleman Mosedale 5 for some family camping. This is a 3 hoop tunnel tent - there are many out there of similar design.

On the whole I am pleased with it; we were in the Lake District last week and it stood up to a variety of weather conditions, including strong gusting wind and a night of heavy rain (no leaks). We stayed at 5 different sites and, with the exception of the problem that I outline below, it is easy to pitch and take down.

The issue that I have with it is that the front fibreglass pole in particular is under a lot of stress - it takes a lot of force to fit it on to the locating pins at the base of the tent; indeed whilst pitching it at home, I managed to bend one of the pins. This is with the tensioning straps adjusted to full length.

The middle pole suffers from the same problem, but perhaps not to the same extent, whilst the shorter rear pole is just fine.

When pitched, because the tensioning straps are at full length, quite a bit of the sewn in groundsheet shows beneath the fly on that side, and it is hard to get a 'neat' pitch, even on a flat surface. You can see a gap below the fly at the front on the photo below.

I'm convinced that the problem is that the tent (the pole sleeve circumference) has been manufactured slightly too small for the poles, and that I need to shorten them by at least 5cm. Because of my remote location, I don't want to send the tent back, so I am considering shortening the poles myself; 2.5cm either side. I will be contacting Coleman directly before I do so however.

Has anyone else experienced similar problems with Coleman or indeed any similar pole tent?

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Quote: Originally posted by Bob61 on 16/4/2018

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Sorry to hear you are having problems with your new Coleman...you should have taken my advice and gone for a metal poled tent

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Quote: Originally posted by richardh1905 on 17/4/2018

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Thanks for the reply, bob. I don't hold out much hope of Coleman being of much assistance, but I wanted to let them know of the problem. There are 2 long poles for the front and middle hoop, and a colour coded shorter pole for the rear hoop; no chance of getting it wrong!

I'll be getting the hacksaw out soon - the worst that can happen is that I need to buy a few new pole sections.

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Quote: Originally posted by richardh1905 on 17/4/2018

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Quote: Originally posted by Bob61 on 16/4/2018

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Sorry to hear you are having problems with your new Coleman...you should have taken my advice and gone for a metal poled tent

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After camping in the Lake District last week, I wish that I had gone for a bell tent with stove!

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