Strike Two for Coleman Inflatables
Written: Mar 27 '08
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Comfortable, nice surface, built in carry bag/cover.
Cons: Hissssssssssssssssssssssss and you find yourself on the ground.
The Bottom Line: This air mattress was great for a little over a year, but then succumbed to what I am learning is a fault in Coleman's inflatable furniture.
|
|
|
| ncphototrekker's Full Review: Coleman Queen Size Flocked Top Quick Bed with Quic... |
This was the first inflatable product that my wife and I acquired for our camping gear. It was put into service a little over a year ago at the beginning of 2007. Up until this last camping trip, I have had nothing but good things to say about this air bed, so lets start with the good.
It is comfortable, plain and simple. It is gusseted inside to provide very even pressure while you are laying on it. There is a felt like material on the top that is actually quite comfortable to lay on all by itself. it also provides a nice slip free surface for any sleeping bags that are used on top.
This mattress is truly a queen sized bed, verified by the fact that we use a queen fitted sheet on it when we are camping. Funny as it sounds, it has helped keep our bags dryer from overnight perspiration. I guess it wicks the moisture away from the bag...but I digress.
You can put two sleeping bags side by side on this mattress or, you can zip two bags together and really make a very comfortable bed as we do. It is up high enough off of the ground that you can use it to sit on as well without feeling like you are sitting on the ground.
Rolling this mattress up takes a bit of practice to be able to get it to fit in the attached cover, but instructions are printed on the cover itself to aid in your rolling. If you do it correctly, and tight enough, the cover actually turns into a completely encompassing bag with a nice carry handle attached. This keeps the mattress from getting dirty while in storage, and makes it very easy to transport.
The air inlet is a double locking affair that promises to keep the air inside at all times. The mattress comes with an air pump, but I've found that this little gadget just can't cope with putting air in this large mattress. It always seemed to give up just as it was filling up. I have retired that pump and replaced it with an air pump also made by Coleman that runs off of the car battery. This one is a good bit more efficient and is able to inflate the mattress a bit better.
Now for the bad...
As I mentioned, up until this last camping trip, I had nothing but positive things to say about this mattress. However, the first of the two nights we were camping we woke up to a partially deflated mattress. This was odd as usually it took three or more days for there to be a noticeable difference in air pressure. I brought the compressor in (running it off of a battery pack) and topped the mattress off and called it a morning. Later that night I went back in for a book and found that the mattress was completely deflated....oh, this is not good I thought to myself. I thought that it was operator error and promptly refilled the mattress with air.
Within the next two to three hours it was deflated again. Knowing that we would be spending the night on the ground, I pumped it up one last time before bed hoping that we would sleep through the deflation. After less than an hour (we were just falling asleep I believe) we hit the ground. Fortunately I had left the compressor and battery pack near the head of the mattress, so I was able to refill the bed without getting out. This routine was repeated throughout the night until we just gave up and embraced the ground below.
The next morning we broke camp and took the opportunity to look under the mattress. There was nothing there that would puncture the bottom, and no visible holes so we filled it back up and started to search for the leak. We found the leak in one of the recessed areas on the bottom of the mattress. It was a slit right next to a seam that looked like the seam had just given up and split open. This was very similar to the problem that we had with the Coleman inflatable couch. It appears that Coleman has a very pronounced problem with their seams in their inflatable furniture.
It is this problem that has prompted me to drop what would have been a five star review down to a one star review. What started out as a possible fluke in one item has turned into a recurring theme among similar products. We still have three other Coleman inflatables and I imagine it is just a matter of time before their seams give way and the air is no longer contained within.
Recommended:
No
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
ncphototrekker
|
 in Electronics |
|
Member: Greg Kiser
Location: Winston-Salem, NC, USA
Reviews written: 43
Trusted by: 7 members
About Me:
I am a semi-professional landscape photographer based in North Carolina.
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.