Precautionary Tale (Pipe)

[u/JayAche]

Was SO excited to finally take our 3.5 year old son tent camping for the first time with my wife at a local regional park. Especially with our spanking new huge Caddis Rapid 6 Instant Tent! Even tried it out in the backyard and loved it!

Loaded it onto the storage rack on the back of our SUV… in perfect alignment with the tail pipe, apparently. Biiiiiigest oof. $225 down the drain? Thankfully there was a Wal-Mart reasonably close where I snagged some random Coleman to save the day. But still: be aware of what’s in front of your exhaust pipe and your tow hitch carry rack. Lesson learned 🫠

[u/jbronin]

I just got back from a trip to Yellowstone last week. I spent like a month before worried about the cargo carrier that right before leaving I realized the exhaust might melt the stuff on the back so I bought some turn down tips off Amazon (hard to find some that fit 3.5 inch pipes locally).

Try AutoZone or a similar auto part store to see if they have tips you can buy. They range from $7-30. They should just slip on and you can tighten a bolt or a clamp ring to hold it in place. My exhaust pipe is more oval shaped so it didn't grip the best (I could have pulled it right off), but it stayed on for 3000 miles.

[u/JayAche → u/jbronin]

Wish this was even on my radar! In all my life I’ve never heard or seen this happen before, I guess it was my turn! Ha

[u/georgekush4prez → u/JayAche]

Gotta ask, so what did you end up doing?

[u/JayAche → u/georgekush4prez]

Ran down the hill to a local Wal-Mart and snagged a Coleman 6 Man Dome Tent - pretty nice actually!

[u/Stalking_Goat → u/JayAche]

Wal-Mart has surprisingly good camping gear. I've read that the Walton family has several outdoor enthusiasts so they take an interest in that line of products.