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I refuse to pay $300.00+ for anything consisting of nothing but plastic and foam. Absolutely ridiculous. I mean seriously, how much R&D is involved to make a cooler. But a sucker is born every minute, so they will continue to make them. My Coleman has never let me down.
 
I'm not calling anybody a liar, but we bought a 65 quart cooler from Costco about three months ago and have taken it on several trips- including one cross country trip from Denver to Washington D.C. via Chicago and then returning to Denver via St, Louis and Kansas City. The temperatures ranged from the 80's to as high as 94 and the cooler performed perfectly. By perfectly I mean it keeper all items cold and retained ice for seven days. Most of the trip we had the cooler in the rear of our FJ, but for about a third of the trip we carried the cooler on the roof. We moved the cooler inside because it reduced our mileage by about 35 percent because of the drag. I have used stainless steel Coleman coolers for years and this Pelican has Coleman beat hands down. The other advantage is the convenient handle placement and anchor hole placement which makes the cooler easy to mount. We also love the latch system which is vastly superior to the Yeti cords. We have a friend with a Yeti and they absolutely preferred out Pelican over the Yeti. If you're concerned about customer service, just buy the cooler from Costco- where you can always return anything! Anywho, at $249. bucks, the Pelican 65 quart is a steal!!
 
We've had our Pelican 65 quart for a little over two months. It has performed as advertised. It's been on wheeling and camping trips, and just made the trek with us to Summit and back (and was wheeled on all the trails in CO, UT, and NV).

I wouldn't hesitate to buy another one.

YMMV.
 
I feel the same way abou my Yeti. I had two coolers in my room in Ouray. One was a $35 Marine Igloo and the other a $290 (now $350) Yeti 45 and they both had room temp beer that needed to be cooled. As it was, due to the Yetis floor, the bottles wouldnt stack well so it had less bottles in it that the Igloo.

Each had 3 bags of ice from town added to start. By that evening- almost all the ice in the Yeti was gone yet the Igloo was still 1/3 full - even with it having to cool more beer.

This isnt my 1st post on this and wont be my last. You can buy a lot of cheap Marine Coolers from Igloo for what one Yeti costs and in the end- you and your beer/ food will be better off.

Before I get lectured on the pre-cooling- Ive tried even dry ice and it still made no difference. The coolers are basically the same with one charging a lot more for being made of Kayak material which doesnt make it hold ice any better than a cardboard box
 
@ Texas TT

Thanks for the heads up. I just cancelled my order for the Pelican 20qt. that I placed this week. I love my Pelican case and I love the idea of a lifetime warranty on their coolers. But if I am responsible for shipping both ways for warranty work then that kills the deal.

I did send my local Pelican case distributor this thread link and he forwarded it onto the Pelican Reps.

Hopefully, they will make this good for all of you that have problems.

Brett
 
OC just resold me on my opinion. A 5 day igloo does the job just fine, and they are a lot less bulky for the volume they hold, and less than 1/10th of the price. My older 5 day cooler keeps block ice for 4 solid days in 95 degree heat following precooling procedures for drinks, beers, etc!
 
OC just resold me on my opinion. A 5 day igloo does the job just fine, and they are a lot less bulky for the volume they hold, and less than 1/10th of the price. My older 5 day cooler keeps block ice for 4 solid days in 95 degree heat following precooling procedures for drinks, beers, etc!
Oh man......now you're going to have to turn in your "Overlanding Man Card" since you won't have the latest, greatest, most expensive gear around on your trips..... >:D
 
Oh man......now you're going to have to turn in your "Overlanding Man Card" since you won't have the latest, greatest, most expensive gear around on your trips..... >:D
pot stirring… :jester::jester::jester:
 
Discussion starter · #31 ·
I'm not calling anybody a liar, but we bought a 65 quart cooler from Costco about three months ago and have taken it on several trips- including one cross country trip from Denver to Washington D.C. via Chicago and then returning to Denver via St, Louis and Kansas City. The temperatures ranged from the 80's to as high as 94 and the cooler performed perfectly. By perfectly I mean it keeper all items cold and retained ice for seven days. Most of the trip we had the cooler in the rear of our FJ, but for about a third of the trip we carried the cooler on the roof. We moved the cooler inside because it reduced our mileage by about 35 percent because of the drag. I have used stainless steel Coleman coolers for years and this Pelican has Coleman beat hands down. The other advantage is the convenient handle placement and anchor hole placement which makes the cooler easy to mount. We also love the latch system which is vastly superior to the Yeti cords. We have a friend with a Yeti and they absolutely preferred out Pelican over the Yeti. If you're concerned about customer service, just buy the cooler from Costco- where you can always return anything! Anywho, at $249. bucks, the Pelican 65 quart is a steal!!
We looked at the ones at Costco, but there were two things that kept us from going that route.

The first was that they did not have the size we were looking for.

The second was that if you read Costco's fine print (shipping and terms tab on the website) they state that they are not an official Pelican dealer & we would not be able to go to Pelican if we had any issues. It said you could always return it to Costco, but who knows if they will still be selling these a year or two down the road.

We did get some good news. After sharing the "flashlight test" pictures with Pelican they admitted the product was defective.
 
Discussion starter · #32 ·
OC just resold me on my opinion. A 5 day igloo does the job just fine, and they are a lot less bulky for the volume they hold, and less than 1/10th of the price. My older 5 day cooler keeps block ice for 4 solid days in 95 degree heat following precooling procedures for drinks, beers, etc!
I agree.

We went with Pelican because:
Good experience with past products
Bear Resistance
Made in the USA

It has been too much trouble though. If we had to do this again we would just go the Igloo route.
 
Still love my Pelican 65 quart and it's true, it is "bear resistant"- which means if you're in national park you don't have to schlep your heavy cooler to those metal storage units. We also put a combo lock on ours and have placed a locking metal leash on it occasionally when we were concerned about possible theft. The great hole placement on the Pelican makes this and mounting easy. And finally, one of the times I loaded a half full Pelican 65 to the roof of my FJ, I dropped it. I was certain I was going to be taking it back to Costco (which by the way has no time limit on the return of stuff- I know 'cause I brought something back after three years once). Alas, the latches, the hinges, the body of the cooler were all PERFECT. That's durability! The things are bulletproof and you'll never get that from Igloo or Coleman. I've used them all.
 
pot stirring… :jester::jester::jester:

He is just brewing up trouble playing monkey in the middle :lol:

Black sheep in the middle is more like it?! :lol:
 

What are ya cookin, buddy?! Looks like you're cooking up all the trail turds you collected at Summit? Was Black Bear the mother lode?! :lol: :cheers:
 
Discussion starter · #37 ·
Update:
Pelican had us ship the cooler back to them. We did so and got a confirmation number that it had been delivered. 30 days passed with no word from Pelican customer service, so we went ahead with cancelling the CC charge. We sent the defective product back & got a refund. I figured everything was over.

A few weeks after that both the vendor and Pelican responded (I guess the CC charge reversal came through on their end). The vendor stated that the email we used to contact them had issues (we actually tried a few email addresses). Pelican then asked us to ship the cooler back to them again. We informed them that it had already been shipped back.

Pelican told us twice they were shipping a replacement, but we never saw it. Each time they would ask for the shipping address and info that was previously provided.

We responded by telling them that the ‘lifetime warranty’ seems to just be a sticker on the box. It does not mean much if a defective product gets shipped back and they forget about the issue. We also told them (again) about the credit card cancellation and that we consider the matter closed.

Most of the time Pelican makes nice products, but their customer service really needs to be overhauled.

We just wanted to buy a piece of gear to take camping in bear country. Instead we got swept into this multi-month odyssey.
 
Nearly forgot about this thread....I did the flashlight test with my 65:
No light leaking from the edges - lid was closed but not latched.

Tough to hear about your problems with Pelican.
 
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