hey guys it's Brian with retired at 40 we haven't forgotten about the van build
the weather really hasn't been cooperating it's been winter time but
we're ready to make that next step and today's step is going to be a big one
today's upgrade is going to be a rooftop tent so we're gonna put this guy on here
so if you've been following the build from the beginning one of the big
upgrades that we wanted to do was a big pop-up tent
it was actually a custom job from a factory here in Colorado but it was
about $13,000 so we decided against that instead of spending the thirteen
thousand we're gonna take the extra and put that to use to lots of other things
so the rooftop tent that I selected is the best value for the money so let's
get this thing unboxed and see what comes with it this is what I have found
to be the best hardshell pop-up rooftop tent camper on the market and it just
happens to be one of the least expensive you can get it for under $2,000 I
actually just got mine from Camping World they were running a sale they had
20% off I got it for about $1,300 so let's get this thing unboxed and get it
reviewed so I like the hardshell for a couple reasons
the first one being because its a hardshell it'll last a lot longer. it'll also sleep two adults it's very low profile
and you can you can place it on any kind of vehicle so as long as you have a rack
on your vehicle we could we put we could put it on our Subaru I can put it on my
van if I ever get a different vehicle down the road I can change it to that
vehicle it also sets up in a matter of minutes which means you can also put it
down in a matter of minutes one thing that I can't stand when camping is
taking half an hour or 45 minutes to get your campsite all set up I like being
able to roll in kind of set up in a couple minutes and get to doing whatever
I'm going to be doing
so I mentioned that it's low-profile from the bottom of the camper to the
very top it's just about ten inches maybe a little less and the other thing
I really like about it is that it's lightweight people would have no problem
lifting this thing up onto a car even a tall car so now that it's here in front
of us I want to get the actual measurements of what this is so the
outside of the show it's about 84 inches long and width it's
gonna be about 51 inches so one of the toughest things to do and I'm kind of
just winging it it's figuring out how to mount this on the roof this is going on
a Promaster and just about any factory van roof is not gonna have any kind of
rack system like an SUV would so I bought something on Amazon and we're
gonna open that up and check it out and get that mounted right now so my biggest
complaint on this thing so far is if there's just no instructions so you kind
of just have to wing it but hopefully with this video I can actually help you
out with that a lot
all right I apologize for the wind it's pretty windy out here today but so the
racks only took us about ten minutes to put together and they go on really
simple they go on to the factory hardware the factory Dodge Hardware
right there this bracket goes here and then this will go on the top of that
and they're ready to rock and roll so part of the reason I chose these racks
is you can see how low-profile they are I'm really trying to keep this low
profile as I possibly can because you start stacking the stuff on top of an
already tall vehicle and it starts to get real tall real fast
all right we're ready I just need to figure out how to get this monster up on
top of there I'll put the weight of this thing right here to see you have an idea
but I think we're only gonna have two people I think we should be able to get
it on there I'm not gonna lie that was no fun at all I would probably use four
people if you could because it's a beast trying to get it up there and if you
have a high roof it's gonna be even worse it was we did try it first to get
it on the side and there that was not happening so the back is probably the
best way make sure you put a blanket or something down there are nuts that stick
out of the bottom and they will tear up your roof for sure these guys right here
but you can see even with the racks and the shell on it's still pretty low
profile prob about the height of a ram promaster raised roof right now and this
is the low roof obviously so my biggest gripe so far is just a lack of
instructions and the the know-how of putting this on here I'm kind of having
to learn as I go I'm gonna go ahead and pop this up because I don't see any
hardware I'm hoping that it's inside of the tent so I'm gonna do that next
sweet so you saw how easy that is there's uh there's legs on each of these
corners they're spring-loaded so once you get it up just a little bit it just
wants to pop up I'm not sure how putting it down will be but the pop up part is
really easy so let's take a peek in here and see what we can find
okay so the first nice thing that I see about this is both sides of this have
the same roll-up that you can access the tent through otherwise if you were
limited to one side of the other it wouldn't necessarily work like I only
have a door on this side so it's nice that I can I can access both sides if I
need to and then this just rolls up let's get into the review part of this
video let's take a look and see inside of this thing so it looks like and then
you can see there's another screen there here's the legs that I was talking about
they're spring-loaded they're kind of a bow type and they're in all four corners
the construction of this canvas stuff is really nice quality so the seams are
really heavy-duty it should last a really long time I'll have to test out
the comfortability at this mattress I wasn't actually expecting it to have a
mattress so that's actually just a bonus and then there's another
aggghhhhh over here and what I'm hoping it is is a ladder take it down all right
so here's what's in side of the shell and these are real slick and I'm glad
this is in here because I actually bought another one if I did it doesn't
say that it actually comes with it so I would recommend that they say that in
their description but they don't comes with a nice storage bag - it's just kind
of nice but this is a telescoping ladder that's gonna hook onto the side that is
our mounting hardware so you can see if this actually was high enough to reach
these hooks actually wrap onto here gives you a nice place to hook on to see
your ladder wouldn't go all over the place I mean it comes with a little
storage pouch thing I'm guessing that that hangs on what the windows or
something that's kind of nice and these I would imagine this is kind
of nice - I think this is probably - pull this down to pull down the shell
when you're on the ground we'll try those out a little bit later
we have this last box here that's pretty cool it looks like a solar like a
lantern for inside another thing that didn't advertise on the description
which is kind of crazy but that's pretty cool it's just chart let it charge all
day and then looks like you can plug it in and charge it too so another cool
thing I just figured out this is actually supposed to be a ladder rack
that we used and these things would go on either side so it's actually kind of
nice because it gives you a little extra security so you can put this and snug up
to the show and then one on the other side for for each of these and you just
have a little bit of extra security that thing's not going anywhere at least side
to side so as far as install it's actually pretty simple
if it's really hard to get a shot of there
are some slides right here and these well actually it looks like these will
slide into them and then you put some a couple nuts on the bottom and do that
all the way around and that's that's all there is to it so not that this thing is
real hard to put together but there's not a lick of paperwork in this entire
thing I can't even find a piece of paper anywhere so I guess you're just uh
you're either winging it like I am or hopefully this video helps you out a
little bit if you're thinking about buying one of these so I did figure out
a way temporarily to make this ladder work I can drop these hooks down if I
just slide something through here I'll have to get something a little stronger
maybe a piece of aluminum or something or steel that will be that up a little
bit but that allows the ladder so it can't move so it took me a bit that I
got everything lined up you can see that I actually or my finger that I offset
this over to the passenger side and that way I have easier access that ladder
will give us better access that way so this side I think is where I'm going to
put this side is where I'm going to put my solar panels and then maybe one on
this side and then one on the very back behind the shell so from what I gather
these little hooks will go grab something and that way you can pull it
down all right I'm gonna switch to the GoPro so you can get a wider angle of
inside here so here's the whole thing you can get a better shot of it now I'm
gonna show you a couple things that I really like about this the first is that
it has a mattress in it which I wasn't expecting that's a really good thing the
mattress isn't super comfortable but is better than sleeping on plastic the
second thing is that the whole top is actually insulated which will help a
little bit it's not just a you know rough plastic or whatever so that's kind
of cool and then it's got this cargo net thing up here when this folds down it
will actually it actually got some room in here
like a rocket box like a yakima rocketbox or something that's similar to
that so you can actually store stuff in here when you're not using it and one
cool thing is you could put all of your clothes in here and it would totally
save space inside your van which for me I have a small van so any space that we
can save is really good it's also got two of these little storage pouches
right here and the other one that it came with we can hang that up somewhere
else the other thing I was a little bit worried about was that it would be too
small for my wife and I I'm about 510 and I don't know 170 pounds and we
shouldn't have a problem at all fitting in here it might be a little bit cozy
but that's kind of camping in general and the fact that you basically got a
guest room up here now to keep all of your stuff separate and be able to sleep
separate then two other people in a small van is huge I'm actually pretty
impressed with the construction it's pretty good quality I didn't really know
how decent it would be so really the most important thing that you need to
figure out is how does it sleep and I've actually had a chance to sleep in it
last night so I figured out a couple things that I didn't necessarily expect
that we're actually pretty beneficial one thing that I figured out is that you
can sit up in this which is nice if you're adjusting during the night or you
have to get up to the bathroom or something like that
it's a it's really nice to be able to sit all the way up and and do your thing
so my kids were sleeping in the tent down here last night which made me
realize one reason why I like the nice durable sides of this because as the
wind was whipping through last night I could hear that sound of the tent when
you hear the kind of the crackle and crinkles of the the tent material
whereas this stuff is a lot thicker and you don't get the flapping noise and
just submit a little things that wake you up when you're camping sometimes so
the mattress wasn't too bad I just had the mattress down and then just a thick
sleeping bag you can see the mattress is really not very thick it's probably two
inches thick I would probably recommend bulking it up just a little bit you can
get a little pieces of memory foam really cheap now
but doubling up what doubling it up would make a world of difference
especially if you had something on top of that for for bedding so think there's
only one more thing to do besides go camping and that's to see how difficult
it is to put down all right I'm gonna try and do this by myself and start the
stopwatch now
so not too terrible can I have to take it a corner at a time there's these
little things that fasten it down if you just get them started that'll hold the
other side from springing back up like I did a front first and that way when I
push the back down it didn't want to pop back up in the front one problem I have
with my genius idea is this will not close now because of my my ladder rack
right here so I'm gonna have to take that out I'm gonna leave this lower one
so I can keep something in here to hold that ladder if you've ever done a pop-up
pole behind camper it's very similar to that you kind of have to tuck everything
in and get it all in one nice uniform thing that's it for me today
all in all I'm really excited it's gonna be great it's a it's still low profile
even with this rack on there it came up the ladder which is awesome it's good
quality aside from not really having any instructions and just a few minor things
totally worth of money it's one of the least expensive ones you can find on the
market especially that's a hard shell you can basically get a hard shell for
the same price as a soft shell and the hard shell just has so many more
advantages than the soft shell does and now that the weather is starting to get
nice out we're gonna keep building away on this van we're getting real close so
stay tuned for those coming up in the meantime this is retired at 40 remember
live life simple we'll catch you next week