The kit is quite comprehensive and includes a repair kit with patches for fabric and air beams, a mallet, good quality pegs, tension straps for stand alone, internal bracing straps, as well as throw over straps although how these would be employed and at the same time retaining the tunnel doors is a mystery and having an ATF not applicable. It comes with a two stage pump and a pressure gauge with an area marked in green so over inflation should not be a problem and it does have built in pressure relief valves too.
There are no instructions other than those sewn into the carrying bag and they only relate to the erection. The carry bag is of an adequate size so providing you fold it correctly as per the third party video,you will not experience the "Well it came out of there!" syndrome.
The weather we experienced in the two weeks we used the awning covered heavy driven rain,very high winds and escorchio heat so it got a good try out!
According to the Vango website standard warranty is is two years and can be be extended by one year by registering on the website to a maximum of two years
.
Go figure.
Build quality and materials used are good,however....
Guy lines were not attached to some of the loops leading to fair bit of head scratching initially.
Side doors could do with tension straps on door ark or Velcro adjusters .It does have elastic tensioners attached to the back edge of the tunnel but these serve to deform the door opening even more when employed and are only of any use to pull the tunnel tighter to the van sides. A word of warning-if your Bongo is fitted with window eyebrows , stick a piece of paper between the buckle and the perspex eyebrow to avoid scratching.
Although this is a "LOW" model -and the website states it is for a range between 180-210- in reality it is too tall for our-190mm floor to gutter-Bongo. Even after tensioning the door arc is very deformed and water pools in the area above the opening giving an unintentional early morning shower! Because of the distortion the zip has a propensity to snag in the seams means an early morning WoS can be quite exiting,invigorating and frustrating all at the same time especially if you are in a hurry!
There are no king poles supplied to allow the use of the front door as a porch, these are available as extras, although there are additional guy lines supplied and I assume that is what they are for?
Front beam lost air, deformed, and required 6-8 pumps to get the correct pressure back in the beam twice a day, in the morning and last thing at night.
OK this was obviously a leak,as the back beam remained good throughout the 2 weeks of use, but this was a brand new from the supplier unit and along with the problems of the guy lines stated earlier could indicate a bit of a lapse in quality control from the factory.
Separate front door fly screen tie ups loops not present and use the main door loops or link into the elasticated retainers of the front door this creates unnecessary frustration in low light or rainy conditions trying to sort out what toggle is what. Simply adding three loops to front front beam carcass would solve this problem and allow better ventilation as the rolled up fly screen obscures the upper vent presently.
Color of interior during the day is fine but at night is dull and cold looking, colored drop down blinds would improve this to a certain extent.
No zip up blind on tent side door
Ventilation on one side under near side window another front vent under eyebrow over front door. The problem with this vent is,as stated, if the fly screen is rolled up and because there are no securing loops for the elasticated toggles, it obscure roughly 3/4 of the vent.
Why there are no separate fly screen securing loops on the front beam escapes me and in my view is serious omission and a bit penny pinching on a premium grade awning.
So because of this omission letting down the clear plastic screen requires the release of the fly screen. If you are doing this from inside it resembles The Dance of the Seven Veils if doing it from out side in the rain you get wet!
Raised sill levels front and rear.
Rear raised sill did catch me out a couple of times as a previous poster stated but it does prevent water ingress when in the drive away set up and you soon get used to it. In the heavy wind and rain we had the leakage came in from the front.
Front sill is insufficiently tensioned and under blowy raining conditions the rain is driven over the sill and into the tent despite securing the lower flap with velcro tabs. So the inner fly screen needs to be dropped to tension the sill thus obscuring the view.
Moving the front ground sheet centre pin-down loop point further forward toward the sill seam would resolve this to a large extent.
The "glazed" windows are heavily creased and although we had the hottest days for over 2 million years -remain so.
I did like the internal privacy blinds that zip up from the bottom so allowing light through the top and a view panel whilst providing privacy when seated inside.
Unfortunately these are only fitted to the front opener door and non opening nearside window the offside door has an external blind/door that zips from the side of the rear beam and a similarly zipped fly screen.
There is no overhead lantern hook. There is a hook on the tunnel area but this puts the lamp outside of the main compartment if the rear "door" is employed. I resolved this with cable tie around the centre support beam but a simple loop sewn into that carcass would be a more elegant solution.
Sewn in ground sheet.
At first this seemed a good idea until I was informed by a site owner that some sites do not allow these.
Anyone come across this?
If so the inability to remove this could be a restriction on those sites best to check when booking.
The attraction of the sewn in sheet was the exclusion of insects and small squeaky animal type things, during the time this awning was in use this wasn't a problem with only a determined beetle finding its way in under the front door gap,this despite being evicted once already. Not a problem if the fly screen is down.
However another unforeseen disadvantage of a sewn in sheet is when packing up. The underside of the sheet becomes wet and muddied and as you fold in this gets folded in too. On the second pitch we used the footprint mat,available as an extra, and found the mud issue not such a problem but the wet was still there. So giving us three surfaces to dry off when packing instead of one, just a thought and an issue not exclusive to the Vango.
Just sayin.
With regard to the footprint mat; you could save yourself 25 quid and use a piece of builders polythene cut to extend into the tunnel area this would serve just as well, you could even extend it to the Bongo sill, to stop under vehicle droughts and would not be as crunchy underfoot as the Vango one.
Fitting to the van.
After reading on this forum of another poster who used a two pole setup, and because of the tunnel height issue referred to earlier, we found this the a better method of securing the awning to the Bongo. Basically you fit a second pole attached using reusable cable ties,to the staples of the ATF and then use the Velcro loops fitted to the awning to secure to this. It would require the pole kit or two if you dont have an old tent pole or two kicking about.
By using this method we were able to gain, effectively, a 3 inch van height increase. This helps a little with the baggy tunnel door issue and meant linking back up to the van not so much of a precision maneuver and far faster than the figure eight loop system.
Conclusion
The appeal of the interior zip up blinds and rear tunnel doors were among the features that attracted me to this awning but the doors proved troublesome in use due to the bagginess and consequent zip snagging and in a strong wind flapped about wildly and noisily as well as looking scruffy. Not having an internal zip up blind on the side door is an omission too in my view but for me the most off putting and frustrating thing was, you have guessed this, the lack of separate fly-screen securing loops over the front opening and no detailed instructions.
I have found manufacturers generally cut down on costs by not supplying comprehensive instructions. It is surprising that a premium grade product like this is almost completely without those instructions indeed the best video instruction comes from a third party via You Tube and not from the manufacturer.
In fact when I queried a feature with the manufacturer before purchase I was refereed to a third party YouTube video!
This is laziness I feel and it needs instruction explaining what the various loops, toggles and Velcro flaps that are dotted around the awning are for. Indeed some of the complaints I have may well have been answered with proper instructions.
The links to Vango videos on their website serve only to show a generic sales video and the downloadable PDF instructions are the same as printed on the inside flap of the carrying bag. Another link to an instruction video was returning a 404 error.
Interestingly enough the opening screen of that sales video shows a VW with the low awning fitted and you can see the distorted door on there,didn't notice it at the time, on the Bongo this is an awful lot worse.
I will get SWMBO in doors to stitch in a couple of Velcro Dooh Dahs at strategic points and this should help alleviate the problem of the baggy doors. A bit. Whilst replacing the leaky beam I will get her to add in the missing front fly screen loops too but I really shouldn't have to on this price point and I will probably need to wait until it is out of warranty on reflection.
I am a bit disappointed as you may guess and I could kick myself for jumping into this purchase but I went with the general reviews and to a certain extent the price, you get what you pay for, and the unique features offered.
In short I didn't research it as well as I should have due to time constraints and should have gone and seen one erected although I don`t think I would have picked up on all the points I have raised even then. I hope this will be of help to others. Anyhow, spilt milk and all that.
I still have to contact the manufacturer about the leaky beam and to ask whether there is a more detailed PDF available so I will update about aftercare when I have contacted them.
