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Sunday, July 29, 2007

Only One Rainy Day

So we had a great time camping this year. It's not quite as relaxing as it was without small children. The books go unread. The knitting project is not knitted. All in all though, we had a great time.

It rained one day all day. Tuesday. It was really funny because we had a brand new Coleman tent. Camp Dry and Seam Sealer were both applied on Saturday. It still leaked. Not a lot mind you, but it leaked around the seam between the walls and the floor. This made my husband mad. A few towels placed in the right spots and all was well. It rained so much and for so long that the rain fly became saturated and it started dripping. This infuriated my husband. He hates to have his bedding get wet while camping.

This wouldn't have been such an issue had Coleman not guaranteed the tent not to leak. That is why we bought that tent. So there we sit in the pouring rain in our somewhat leaky tent. We did have an extra tarp (always have an extra tarp for every camping trip) to put over the tent. That took care of the leaky rain fly. My husband goes to the van, gets the tent bag, looks for the Coleman number and calls on his cell phone. He waited on hold for what seemed like forever (which made him even more mad). When he finally spoke to a person he held the phone up so they could hear the rain and told them the situation (nicely). He ended his nice tirade with "So what is Coleman going to do for me?"

Coleman does stand by their guarantee and is picking up the old tent and sending us a new one. They are sending a different tent. Apparently, the Coleman tent that you get at Walmart is specially made for Walmart. Even though the CSR didn't come out and say it, she eluded to the fact that those tents aren't quite as good as other Coleman tents because they made them to Walmarts specifications and not their own. I don't know if this is true or not but if it is, why put your company's name on the product and why guarantee the product?

We are not the type to complain about every little thing. We probably complain less than a lot of people, but when a company guarantees a product to do something and we pay extra money for it because of that guarantee, we expect 1) the product to do what the guarantee says and 2) the company to stand by that guarantee. It's really the priciple of the matter. Had they not had "guaranteed not to leak" all over the tent and the literature that came with it, we probably would not have complained.

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