OZTENT AFTER A WHOLE YEAR CONSTANT USE | Here's What We Found - RV3 Lite 

Yeah, we lived in our Oztent RV3 Lite for one year. It served as our daily office as well as sometime bedroom/dining room. Here's the Road Trip EU playlist: ru-vid.com/group/PLyTy7oNFTvF1u3VeHD36r-OSH9L4ixJI1 or our original setup & detailed review (almost) eight months ago: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-pUZSxXLr-JU.html

We have a standard RV3 not the lite. Has been setup 6 months a year for ten years (semi permanent camp bottom mainland AUS)and done some heavy duty touring, 40+ degrees, heavy rain and wind. Had condensation first night, ordered the fly, left it on and never had since. Zip finally gave out last season so need to replace that. Sensational tent. Absolute quality. Probably needs a new bag now and will definitely order the RV4 bag. That’s my only criticism of the tent, they should add 5% length to the bag. Poles, Guy ropes and zips all brilliant even though our main zip now needs replacing. Have had basically a river flow under our sleeping area and bone dry. We have the extra rooms too which are no good for road trips as cumbersome to set up and take down but great for longer stays.

I’ve had my oz tent 3 for about 15 year now, use it every year for a large amount of time in the summer months. Never had a problem with it & it’s still in excellent condition. I’ve certainly had my money’s worth. Great bit of kit.

For daily use over the course of a year it held up surprisingly well. Reinforce those high stress areas that failed with some patches and it should continue to serve you well for many years to come. My RV3 is lucky if it sees more than 10 nights per year, but it still looks new after a few years now and I see no reason to send it on down the road even with my other camping options. I would suggest the heavier canvas of the standard models as the weak point of your Lite model appears to be the fabric which doesn't really save all that much weight.

THANK YOU FOR DETAIL VIDEO OZ TENT RV5 AS GREAT UNIT AFTER 6 YEARS ON ROAD WENT WORKING AS HOME WAY HOME IN NSW AUSTRALIA

Great review. I would expect a tent like this, at this cost, would stand up well for daily use over a year. And it seems to have done that, with failures only occurring more or less where expected - basically where the fabric meets metal. Based on my level of use as compared with yours, I would think this tent would last for decades! Thanks for taking time to put this together.

Looks like a good tent!! 😊 one skill which has really empowered me recently is learning to repair a tent using a strong canvas patch and a stitching awl. I’ve repaired some fairly heavy canvas tarps including new grommets and the repair has been much stronger than the original. The very few problems you’ve had with that tent you could easily repair yourself on the road with a stitching awl. But it looks like a pretty good tent to me.

That's a good demonstration of the water-tightness of the awning, but of course you never want that much water to build up, there. Why do I never see the awning set up at 3/4 or 2/3 or 1/2 height? Seems to me you'd want that option for heavy rain, to keep from creating a lake up there. The only concession to that I've seen in all the photos and videos is running an anchor line from the middle of the far edge of the awning down to the ground, to create a spillway. But the poles at the corners are always at full extension. I would think that a cowboy in foul weather would want his brim pulled low. I wonder if the tight zipper is a result of pulling something too tight, somewhere else on the tent. Like maybe you should zip that door closed before anchoring one or more of the corners... Just a thought. I'm not even sure he had any stakes in the ground when he was showing the tight zipper. But thinking about the mechanics of setup, you kind of can't zip it closed until the tent's stood up and the hinges in the walls are locked in place. It may just be a design flaw that doesn't cause a problem, because they make a good zipper! Just in my experience, whenever I had something like that crop up, it was a user error on my part. But maybe it's just a smidge off in the cutting or stitching of the fabric that got past quality control. LOL! I'll see myself out!

Just acquired a second hand one. Haven’t used it yet but looking forward to seeing how it performs.

Epic beard Marcel

Center pole for rainy days

Thanks for that guys, I'd expected it to last at least 5 years if I'm honest. It seems to have failed at the joints and sharp ends when folded which is a design flaw, uv degradation is such that it looks like a 5 years old tent. The habitation area abd height looks fine just the materials are a bit meow and poor. There's probably better out there

Yours being the lite version, will oztent use thinner material?

I have this same setup, the modular section roof leaks like a tea strainer, the panels have become sticky like they are covered in adhesive and the 2 extendable upright poles no longer lock. I have had this tent for about 18 months and only used it 4 times. I had a $100 kmart tent before this one and took more than 20 years to wear out... Definitely a bad purchase.

You have really torture tested that tent! I think you would be better served with the canvas version, it’s a lot more heavy duty.

Set up my OztentRV4 for 2 months last summer (Dec-Jan2023). Cleaned up bird poop on the Fly (bought las Feb2022) with tap water and it split open like a brittle plastic. E-mailed Oztent last week, told to contact E-bay seller Tentworld, still waiting for reply.

It's annoying because with a lot of expensive products, the faults are so easily solvable with a common sense fix which should have been corrected during design and testing.

I’d say you got way more than your monies worth out of it and still using it.

Personally I don't like the lite, they look and feel too cheap & flimsy! I have an RV1 and RV3 and wouldn't have bought them if they were not all canvas, I think they only made the Lite to adhere to some US States fire regulations so as to increase US sales? I would say it held up pretty well for 52 weeks constant use in those opposite extreme weather conditions, I love my Oztents but somebody should show the complete set up and pack down in real time without cuts in filming! Just the awning alone can take up to half an hour to set up correctly solo and a real struggle in high winds so 30second tent they are not, 30 second hub shelter maybe.

You do realise that the orange cap on the fly tent pole is supposed to go OVER the fly?

“That’s a wrap” 👌 really enjoyed this tent and recommend it 👍🏼🫶🏼

“That’s a wrap” 👌 really enjoyed this tent and recommend it 👍🏼🫶🏼