James Baroud discontinued?

Lemsteraak

Adventurer
I don't know if this helps with Baroud and I've never encountered one but I'm familiar with hard shelled roof tents. I would imagine that they are using an acrylic fabric, similar to Sunbrella. This fabric doesn't take abrasion at all well. On the original Maggiolina the outside clasps were there to stabilize the shells when closed so they wouldn't work against each other. The lift mechanism holds the roof down so the clasps were secondary. The shells would still work against each other so if you pinch the fabric between the shells the fabric could be chaffed through in a heartbeat. There is a crummy black foam strip on the inside of the upper shell. Most folks think this is a bad attempt as a seal, it is not. The foam is there to protect the fabric if pinched between the shells. If you get a black mark on your fabric, it is a tattletale, you need to use more care when closing your tent.

If you don't have a foam strip in your Baroud tents, you can easily add one. It is just a black foam window seal,. get a thin one and stick it on the raw fiberglass on the inside edge of the upper shell.
 

maust

Member
I don't know if this helps with Baroud and I've never encountered one but I'm familiar with hard shelled roof tents. I would imagine that they are using an acrylic fabric, similar to Sunbrella. This fabric doesn't take abrasion at all well. On the original Maggiolina the outside clasps were there to stabilize the shells when closed so they wouldn't work against each other. The lift mechanism holds the roof down so the clasps were secondary. The shells would still work against each other so if you pinch the fabric between the shells the fabric could be chaffed through in a heartbeat. There is a crummy black foam strip on the inside of the upper shell. Most folks think this is a bad attempt as a seal, it is not. The foam is there to protect the fabric if pinched between the shells. If you get a black mark on your fabric, it is a tattletale, you need to use more care when closing your tent.

If you don't have a foam strip in your Baroud tents, you can easily add one. It is just a black foam window seal,. get a thin one and stick it on the raw fiberglass on the inside edge of the upper shell.

Thanks for the input.
When closing the tent the fabric will be pinched between the upper and lower shells, the foam helps but does not solve the design flaw.
The dealer initially thought there was an issue when closing the tent, till he saw how I was operating the tent which is when Walt from TAV stated I was doing everything correct.
With first hand experience on the tent for the past few years paired with three friends having the same tent on their rigs, I feel comfortable saying it matters how the tent is mounted and the JB tents should not be permanently mounted for daily driving. The JB tents would be better suited on trailer applications which is where I plan on moving the tent when repaired/replaced.
 

Lemsteraak

Adventurer
It doesn't sound like moving your tent to a trailer is a good idea. We used to put roof tents on trailers to test durability. The story I told about using a folding tent was on a month long off road trip down in Mexico. The little folder was a full blown expedition tent that was used in Africa and failed its test. Nothing major, just both hinges broke from metal fatigue. They couldn't handle the vibration and constant motion. The attachment bolts were drilled in line so we changed the pattern. Trailers are a brutal place for a rooftent.

On installations where we couldn't reach up to "roll" the fabric we would install "D" rings to attach elastic cord to draw the fabric in when closing. I noticed all the new Maggiolinas have this feature but it is undocumented. The fabrics we used were all marine fabrics. The folding tents had a fabric that was used on North Sea fishing boats to handle the abuse. I would think that if you took your tent to a sailmaker that they could add chaffe patches to the wear areas.
 

us_grant

New member
Warranty has never actually changed. Feel free to reach out again. It has literally been the same for 6 years.

Wait, are you the person who decided they wanted an Alu-Cab tent instead of a James Baroud when you had warranty issues? Even though James Baroud replaced your tent for free no questions asked and your replacement tent is still sitting on our loading dock after 9 months waiting for someone to pick it up?
Please tell me no. Because your warranty claim (cracking gel coat and some kind of unexplained fabric issue we’ve never seen before) could not have possibly gone any easier for you. We simply had to wait a shipment cycle to get a replacement for you.
Please advise. Your tent is still sitting here...

I'm local, willing to pick up tomorrow :) Will post in 6 months a review if they are in fact awesome tents ;)
 

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