UKC

Has anyone else found that the longevity of modern tents is inferior to that of tents from ten or twenty years ago?  It seems to me that the drive towards increasingly lightweight materials has decreased the longterm durability of tents, as a fly made from super light nylon seems, in my experience, far more subject to UV-damage related breakdown (if you use the tent a lot) than older, heavier materials.  I spray it with UV stuff every year, and I was even erecting a tarp over the tent for long camping tips, but you can't keep all the UV radiation off every inch of the tent, as you have to be able to get out of it. 

A quick Google search for things like "durable mountain tents" reveals very little about mountain tents that will hold up to years of camping, but every website emphasises how *light* they are.  I personally would take another kilo or two of weight for a tent that will last without the hassle of wrestling with the manufacturer over UV damage to the fly.  There's a gap in the market for anyone who wants to get into tent-making!

I don't think it's just tents. Rucksacks, jackets etc. too. Lightness fetishism in marketing is what seems to sell stuff, but that means thinner fabrics which generally inevitably come with a loss of durability.

Agree completely. I suspect the 'ultralight' kit fetish is actually the use of thinner, less durable materials to cut costs with a bit of marketing spin.

Short answer: profitability and purchase price 

Long answer: If I sell super sturdy tents, you'll only buy one in your lifetime. If I sell tents that fail faster, chances are you'll buy several over time, hence my revenue stream is likely to be healthier. 

Now I could just charge a lot more for the sturdy tent to offset that, but then fewer people will buy them because initial purchase price is most important to many buyers. The demand is for lower prices. How to satisfy that? I use cheaper materials to drive the manufacturing cost down so I can sell them at a lower price. The downside of that is that they don't last so long, the good news is I can sell more of them. 

So I can choose to sell a few expensive durable tents or a lot of cheap flimsy tents. Since 2008 the trend is towards the latter. 

The manufacturers are still out there. Hilleberg, Helsport, Fjallraven still make heavier but bombproof tents amongst several others. Obviously you pay the price but it's well worth it when the tent can last 10-15 years. 

Price has come down too.  In 1995 I bought a Berghaus Trango Extrem jacket for £249, which was a lot of savings for a 15 year old at the time - probably at least £500 in today's money.  About 10 years later I bought a Mera Peak (a very similar jacket) for £199.  The price of that level of jacket remains about the same (though the modern one will use less fabric as they are all shorter).

Comparing the two, the 1995 jacket had a more heavyweight zip and metal press studs, whereas the 2005 one had plastic studs and the zip was much less robust.  But in real terms it was less than half the price.  The new one wore out far sooner than the old one did, as you might expect at that cost difference.

I'm happy to replace if it means I have to carry less, I find it a great joy to bounce off into the hills for a few days with a 40l sac weighing less than 20 pounds.

The downside is the waste at end of life.

We still have the old Vango Force 10 that we used for family holidays in the 70s. My Mum, Dad and I once even carried it up a mountain somewhere but you wouldn't want to do that too often. As it happens it blew down but that's another story....

I used to have a Blacks Good Companions Minor with  a home made low slung flysheet with car tyre inner tubes cut out crossways for elastic guys. It was a Pyramid  single A pole tent and quite small, made from Egyptian Cotton. It was utterly bombproof, we camped out on Skiddaw once and overnight winds were recorded on Great Dun Fell at 130 mph. It was wild and we had to physically hold in to the A pole but we were still in one piece by morning. Because it was Quality cotton there was no condensation at all, absolutely zero. Camped a few times at -20C in Scotland. These tents typically lasted 30 or more years, even with heavy use.

I had a Hillberg Nammatj for about seven years until UV damage caused the fly to become so fragile it eventually ripped in the wind.  Replacing the fly alone proved ridiculously uneconomical (basically the price of a whole new tent!).  Its successor (different company) is now suffering the same problem, even though I have tried to protect it from UV damage as much as I can with the tarp and solar-proof stuff.  At the end of the day, I still need to use the tent. 

My parents have a 25-year old North Face tent that they use regularly in the intense sun of the Utah desert or camping in the Colorado mountains above 5000ft.  Never had a problem with it. 

I get the planned obsolescence thing.  But you roll your eyes when the gear companies espouse their wonderful conservation and sustainability ethos, but at the end of the day, the gear doesn't last and you have to throw it out every couple years (but not you, Arcteryx! Your waterproofs last forever!).  Sustainability my a**se. 

It’s a tricky one. A tent that is heavier and could eventually knacker your knees by carrying it, against a lighter less durable tent that won’t last as long but your knees might? I think I’d go somewhere in between. 

I've had a Marmot Citadel for 20 years and used it for at least a few days every year. It's starting to fray at the edges now, but I've cared for it and should get a few years more use out of it. We've used the lighter (and less roomy - my wife calls it the potholing  tent) Nutshell for backpacking, and that's still holding up after 18 years. The flys of both seem fine. Its the pole ends and ground sheets that are going to go first, I think.

Which is great. Mind you, with a bit more flimsiness in these I might have won the case before now for getting a Hilleberg thing or two, but they just won't die. 

However, for camp site camping we have gone over to a tent you can actually stand in - one of the Decathlon inflatable ones.

As others have said its lightweight beating durability in many outdoor products. Largely due to what the purchaser requires (or has been led to think they do). At least with tents (unlike boots...current UKC thread about Sportiva quality) one can sometimes save weight and increase stability by accepting a smaller size at the expense of comfort. I do find I now value light weight items more highly....however I'm not doing as much so durability is less of an issue to me. 

As Keith Bontrager said, 'light, cheap, strong - pick two'.

Hilleberg and equivalent manufactures already fill that gap. 

Some manufacturers use Polyester for some of their fly sheets - Robens for instance. I believe this is more UV resistant.

Might be worth trying this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B003DI6ZTQ/ref=asc_df_B003DI6ZTQ56588238/?tag=g...

I put some on a tent, but it's a bit early to say whether it's made a real difference.

Personally I like having lighter, simpler stuff. Twent-plus years ago I'd carry 18-20kg in the Lakes/Scotland; now it's 8-10kg. My MLD tarp is probably less durable than my old Wild Country Trisar, but it's much lighter and there's also a lot less to go wrong with it. Same with my OMM pack compared to my old North Face sack that was was bombproof but over-engineered. On balance I think its a net positive.

I think you can still buy Vango Classic Mk5's a cotton canvas tent weighing in at 10 Kg. Weren't they first made in the 70's? But they might have made the materials a little more flimsy over the years.

No.

Plenty of lightweight tents from the 1990's failed depressingly quickly back then as well.

For example the flysheet on my Ultra Quasar bought in 1996 failed catastrophically following UV damage from a 6-week high altitude Exped in 1998 when it was next used in really bad weather in the Cairngorms.

I've been doing this long enough to just accept that with heavy use every single item of outdoor kit (except, it seems, MSR titanium cookware!) wears out far quicker than you'd like. Tents are definitely no exception and that hasn't changed in the thirty plus years I've been camping.

I find putting up your tent when your ready to get in it and taking it down once you get up for the day minimizes UV.

If you want a tent to stay in one place erected for a long time perhaps look for a Basecamp type tent. Perhaps they are more suited to what you are looking for? Lots of heavy, tough, cotton options, for car camping type trips there are even the Bell tent type options.

I'm still using my parents' Force 10 from 1973 for car camping. It's had some new rubbers, but that's it.  Used a Vaude Mk3 from '97 to 2012 fairly extensively and passed it onto someone else to use. Currently on a Hilleberg Kaitum II which seems to be doing fine on the UV front even though it's fly is paper-thin.

"Plenty of lightweight tents from the 1990's failed depressingly quickly back then as well."

^^This^^

We only see the stuff from the old days that did last (not just tents), everybody's just forgotten about the weak things.

I've only had one tent go because of degredation: and I'd bought that second hand and used it about 60/70 nights a year for four years! (Saunders Spacepacker)

My biggest bugbear recently is the flimsy nature of the groundsheets - to the extent that you are almost always going to have to carry a 'footprint' in less than perfect conditions. I really dont mind carrying a few more GM's in order to stay dry: that, after all, is what I'm carrying a tent for!

Not the lightest tent I own but an old Terra Nova Solar1 has all of my newer tents beat in that department. Great design for the solo camper as well with the 'panorama' door

There are a good amount of tents that aren't made with super light nylon outers. Quasars are still made in different thickness outers. Trango 2 has 70 D outer which I assume would stand up to a good amount of UV damage. etc