Vango airbeam - warning

[Tntoast]

just thought id share this with you.

last weekend we went to put up the awning (for the 3rd time in 18 months) and was happily inflating.
first thing i noticed that was odd was i saw what looked like a football in the tent!.

i wasnt being over eager with the inflation, dont think i was even in the green zone at the time but i stoped and pocked my head in.
it appeared that the inner tube had breached its cover and was ballooning out from below the zip up outer!

obviuosly, stopped inflation and took the valve out.
didnt really know what to expect construction wise, having never unzipped the airbeam.
it appeared to me that the airbeam bladder is in a cover, this assembly is then zipped into the tent.

the bladder had somehow escaped from its cover then somehow started to inflate like a balloon outside of the tent zip. hard to understand i know.

i unzipped the tent outer cover, the bladder cover was unzipped to mid way of the beam, hence the bladder was not 'retained' by the cover allowing it to inflate without being retained.

i dont know how this happened, wether it was unzipped or not.

long story short, tried to fix, couldnt, inflated a bit to try and get the awning up to some degree, bladder was knacked and went down. spent weekend with a half up awning.

originaly bought it off Oli from BMVS but it was about 18 months ago, so outside of the 12 months garuantee. theyve passed me onto vango. what a palava!.
why do people never answer thier phones anymore!!. eventualy, sent an email, auto email reply, i have to wait for 10 to even get a reply...

i did get in touch with a company in penzance who are a service centre, they were very good.
my intention was to just suffer the cost and buy a new airbeam inner and cover, rather than getting involved with the expense and hastle (and i know it will be hastle!) but as i have the old model, they dont carry spares and i have to go back to Vango.

why is it that nothing works as it should do and when it doesnt its a pain to get it sorted!

so, my word of warning is this.

before you next use your vango airbeam, check to see that the airbeam is correctly zipped in, undo the tent zip and look at the inner zip. if the inner zip isnt zipped DO NOT INFLATE.

definately worth a look next time you use...

did i like it the three times ive used it - yes
would i buy another one - no.

wife said before we bought it, dont you think itl pop, me, No, theyre pretty bomb proof nowadays.
how them words have come back to haunt me!

 

[Raggedroy]

As a kite surfer I am fully aware how the Airbeam's are constructed. Kitesurfing kites use a similar technology. A lot of kite repairers can repair damaged bladders. It may be worth contacting one of those. https://www.jonnieeisler.com/

 

[Tntoast]

will do cheers,
think its beyond repair myself as its deformed now

 

[Raggedroy]

It's worth a try, I have seen some pretty bad kite bladders repaired.

 

[colint17]

Just returned from our eagerly awaited 4 week tour of Spain and want to warn of my experience with our Vango Kela awning bought 4 years ago and only used around a dozen times.

Near the end of our first week one of the two main Airbeam poles started deflating, kept this pumped up but the second time we used the awning the smaller beam that keeps the main Airbeams apart also deflated. On closer inspection I could see that both valves were leaking, either from the nylon screw thread, or where the valve is joined to the plastic bladder. In the last week the third final beam also leaked when I was testing my superglue repair to the other beams.

Thought it should be easy to get replacements in Spain, after all Vango are a well known manufacturer, but no service centres in Spain ! Contacted Vango/AMG Group customer services and they said the best they could do was to send them out to our Spanish campsite, from http://www.campingspares.co.uk/, and looking at this site it would cost me around £150 for the three Airbeams and postage to Spain.

This was of no use to us as we were touring the country and would not be in any site long enough for the poles to arrive. So we were stuck with a heavy unusable awning taking up half the lower boot space for the rest of the trip.

When we returned to the UK I again contacted customer services and after two weeks I’m still waiting for a reply.

So a word of warning - if you expect these to last more than a few years make sure you pitch near to a Vango service centre and have a lot of cash with you. Personally I would never buy a Vango Airbeam awning again, the products don't seem to last long and the service centre/customer service setup leave a lot to be desired.

Rant over !

 

[Amarillo]

We used a Vango Kela III for ~200 nights out of 365 on a year long European tour.

We had a few issues, including leaky seams and pooling water (the pooling water we resolved, the leaky seams can be resolved).

I have to say that overall it performed better than we had hoped and as a second hand purchase has proved to be excellent value for money.


Follow my blog: www.au-revoir.eu

 

[colint17]

We used a Vango Kela III for ~200 nights out of 365 on a year long European tour.

We had a few issues, including leaky seams and pooling water (the pooling water we resolved, the leaky seams can be resolved).

I have to say that overall it performed better than we had hoped and as a second hand purchase has proved to be excellent value for money.


Follow my blog: www.au-revoir.eu

I think Vango may have improved the Airbeam design for the Kela III with new Airspeed valves in 2015 and with the original Kela they were just testing the technology. With hindsight I would probably buy something with simpler technology such as sides for the VW awning that may offer me more reliability.

 

[colint17]

I have now advertised my Kela awning on eBay under heading "Vango Kela drive away awning for repair" if anyone is interested.

Before I get shouted down by members, much as I would have liked to, I couldn't post it on this forum under the "For Sale or Wanted" section because I'm not an "Established" member having a minimum of 20 posts.
In my opinion this definition of Established should be reduced to say 5 posts, particularly for VIP members, to encourage more forum activity.

 

[MattBW]

I'll raise your suggestion with the team to review.