Therm-a-Rest ProLite 3 Air Mat Product Review

I suspect they could make Thermarest pads that are much more durable, but then they would be heavier.
They find that middle ground between what is an acceptable weight and acceptable durability.

A more durable/heavier pad wouldn't sell as well as a lighter less durable one.

Hi Steven

Reckon you have it.

cheers

I've used my Prolite about 160 nights now.

It's started delaminating:

I bought it at REI so I'll exchange it for a new one.

Maybe it's not unreasonable that a lightweight item wears out after 160 nights.

This is the first time I've seen this topic of delamination covered. I'm grateful. I had this happen with my Montbell 150 pad, it was out of warranty, I sent it to Montbell and they sent me a new Montbell 150 pad. Great support. REI also does great support. Mine happened after about 100 nights on the trail.

I always wondered if the detergent or cleaning fluid one uses on the pad to clean the pad might contribute to delamination. Any recommendations for how to clean a pad?

ps. I did not know Montbell would return me a new pad, I was expecting a repair quote instead, and in the interim, REI had a 20% sale on their Thermarest new prolite pads and I got one of those. Now I have two pads, ready for instant replacement (as long as not on the trail) of the next delamination event. Hope it takes more than another 100 nights on the trail.

When I get onto my pad, I often put my hand where it delaminated and put all my weight on it.

That, and I sit there and swing me feet around to the foot end.

I think if I didn't put all my weight on my hand it probably would last a lot longer.

Nice to see someone (Christine) sticking their head above the parapet.

The old TARS lasted forever because they were more durable (and thus heavier). I also had one (an Expedition 3/4 length model) for over 15 years, before I stupidly 'upgraded' to a lighter Prolite 3. Since then I've been through the P3 and two Prolites; the most recent was bought autumn 2012, so this is NOT an early product run problem; it had at most three months' 'realtime' use on it before it delaminated.

Anybody familiar with the old petrol-tank-in-the-car-boot story?

This is not user error. It's quite simple. Thermarest suck up warranty replacements from people actually using these mats because they make more money out of not addressing the durability problem. Rather, they sell lots and lots of lightweight mats to people who don't use them enough for the problem to occur. My own feeling is that the cutouts are too big; there just isn't enough surface area left to bond to inside the mat. Resolve the problem, the mat gets heavier and thus it doesn't sell.

It's not just Thermarest, they're all at it. I had a POE mat that lasted 2 1/2 weeks before internal seams ripped out in two places. The UL apologists will now say it's my fault. Yeah, yeah, and she was asking for it dressed like that, y'honour.

There is an easy solution. It's called a Multimat Expedition Summit XL CCF mat.