Long Term Field Test Coleman Fremont 6 Tent – Review

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Coleman Fremont 6 Tent Review

Technical Specification

  • Flysheet first / pitch as one
  • 6 person capacity
  • 3 bedrooms
  • PU-coated 4000mm polyester with fully taped seams
  • 185T Polyester breathable inner tent
  • Polyethylene 1000D 140g/m² groundsheet
  • Wrapflex poles
  • Carry bag with handle
  • Headroom: 190 cm
  • Sleeping area: 8.8 m²
  • Living area: 5.6 m²
  • Pack size: Dia 50 x 85 cm
  • Weight: 28.9 kg

Our Verdict

We were initially drawn to the tent for a few reasons, namely the size, layout, sturdy poles (I was fed up of having poles snap in high wind) and the competitive price. The tent was already a season old when purchased (tracking down last season tents is a great tip for those on a budget), costing me just over £320, an excellent deal for a tent of this size.

Having used plenty of Coleman camping products before, but never a tent, we were confident in the brand and went ahead and purchased the tent to replace my 5 year old Vango Icarus. We are fairly frequent weekend campers, and even before starting this blog, we camped out for at least 30 nights a year, with trips lasting anything from 1 to 5 nights at a time.

The tent provides 4 separate sleeping and living areas, which meant there was ample room for all of our camping and LARP gear, but more on that later. The large front extension that comes with the tent, can be easily zipped on/off, handy if you aren’t going away for long, or if you don’t need the extra space and nice not to have to pay extra for a tent extension too! We kept the front extension zipped in, and used it every time we camped.

Whilst a tent of this size might sound absurd for 2 of us, our hobby, LARP requires frequent camping trips and a lot of costume, armour and props to play the game. We also have a full kitchen, table, chairs, clothes rail, over sized airbeds as well as a camp loo to accommodate. There are  also times when my daughter and her boyfriend join us on weekend camping trips, so we needed something to accommodate 4 adults and a lot of kit.  Whilst the size is perfect for our admittedly, unusual requirements, it really is the ideal size for a family, very easily accommodating 2 adults and up to 4 children.

The pack size of this tent is big and at nearly 29kg, I am unable to carry it on my own. It should come as no surprise then, that a tent of this size definitely needs 2 people to put up! Yet start to finish (including pegging down the guy ropes) it takes only around 30 minutes to put up, and it’s not difficult to do; the colour coded poles make it easy.

We’ve been using the tent for just over 2 years now, so these are the things that we liked and a few that we didn’t like so much about the Fremont 6.

What we liked

  • The tent is superbly spacious with a flexible layout, which we loved.
  • Plenty of internal pockets for storage.
  • Good at keeping wind out.
  • The front extension can be easily zipped off to reduce the size of the tent.
  • Excellent, true  family-size accommodation at a very good price.
  • High quality thick tent poles that never snapped, despite us camping in high winds on many occasions.
  • Oversized, sturdy storage bag that was always big enough to get the tent and poles back inside.
  • Having two ways to enter the tent is great on rainy or windy days, as the side entrance is covered and quick and easy to open.
  • Colour coded poles made it easy to put the tent up.
  • The clever Coleman roll down window system is great – just don’t forget to take a the metal window snaps out before you put the tent down!
  • Bright and airy at the front of the tent, thanks to the large windows.
  • All inner tents can be moved and reconfigured.
  • Lantern hanging hook and low down zip to run power into the tent.

What we didn’t like about the tent

  • The bath-tub style clip in ground sheet for the front extension did not maintain it’s shape, and the sides frequently flattened out. There was no central fastening down either side, which let heavy rain in (but only into the front extension area).
  • Although fully taped, after 6 uses of the tent, we noticed water starting to come in through the seams, and we had to re-waterproof it. Not an easy job when you don’t have a massive garden, and despite re-waterproofing, the tent never performed as well from that point in rain.
  • We used the tent a few times more, and re-waterproofed it again, but almost every seam leaked badly during a moderate 3 hour downpour, and we had water dripping through multiple areas of the flysheet too, leaving much of our gear and bedding soaked through.

In summary, for occasional use for a large family, at this price point, this tent was a good buy, and despite the recent leaking, it has been a great tent. In fact, we are struggling to find a new tent anywhere near this price that has a comparable size and layout. Don’t be surprised if you need to re-proof it though, so make sure you have a garden big enough to put this beast up. I had hoped the tent would last longer, but we did get a lot of use out of it for 2 years.

The Coeman Fremont 6 is definitely worth picking up second hand on Ebay, and there are still a few new versions of this tent knocking around on Amazon, despite it being a few years old now.

Pictures of the Coleman Fremont 6 Family Tent

Coleman Fremont 6 Tent

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Inside the Coleman Fremont 6

Inside the Coleman Fremont 6

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Inside the Coleman Fremont 6
Inside the Coleman Fremont 6

Shell Robshaw-Bryan
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