My Experience with Dri Ducks

I had a very similar fate for my dri ducks pants.

The jacket has been quite a bit more serviceable for me. I've worn it several times with no issues.

A friend of mine made his pants into a set of shorts for rain wear that seems to work well. I have hear of other people converting them to a kilt.

I use and like the jacket but ditched the pants in favor of a pair of tyvek pants from US Plastics (though lots of places sell them). I pull them on over my hiking pants when the weather or bugs are bad. In my experience the tyvek holds up significantly better when pushing through overgrown trails and it's reasonably rainproof too.

Well, keep going and eventually the pants might morph into a rain kilt! Albeit an unusually well ventilated kilt…

"Anyway, I know a lot of ULers swear by them, but I am just reporting my experience. One hour for $19.95, I guess I got what I paid for."

I don't know anyone on here who swears by the pants – except to immediately mod them into a rainskirt. The overwhelming consensus on here seem to be the pants are next to useless for active wear. In other words no crouching allowed my friend. :-)

The jacket is much, much more serviceable, just make sure you get a loose fit.

That is too bad to hear…I wore driducks pants and jacket all day at Disney a couple of months ago with no issues…riding rides, walking all day…etc. Actually, my wife did too, no issues. But that is just anecdotal.

Yeah, I left the jacket in the car and wore my heavier weight Columbia…turned out neither would have made a difference in that damn maelstrom we were in up there! At least I learned my Stratospire 2 was worthy of heavy wind and rain!

So, bottom line, keep the jacket, don't replace the pants. I will definitely keep the jacket for a try next time it's rainy. The Columbia jacket I have is at least 2-3x as heavy.

My pants survived a night at work in a very rough environment(we treat PVC rainsuits as disposable) with minimal care taken, and it was a surprise that they did. I expect they'll give up the ghost with minimal use, and am just killing them off after having ripped the zipper out of the matching jacket tugging on it too hard.
Other than the lack of durability, the jacket has been great, and that's what I bought another set for. May occasionally carry the pants when rain is threatening, though.
Hard to beat a sub-6oz jacket that actual use has shown both breathable and absolutely waterproof. I don't mind paying $20 for one every now and then.

-"I will definitely keep the jacket for a try next time it's rainy."
The frogg toggs jacket is no joke. I wondered about it until it got "field tested" by staying on deck in heavy rain that lasted around four hours while on a deep sea fishing daytrip. Before that, it was "emergency rain gear" carried when no rain was expected. Now it's what I carry when expecting rain.

One experience I've had with the Dri Duck/Frogg Togg material was water coming through the material, I believe due to pressure from the backpack. The jacket was pulled down below the bottom of the pack through the entire hike, but water came though anyway. I suspect the pressure of the pack against the fabric gave the water a higher "head" than the fabric could hold out.

Steve

The crouch rip is a classic hallmark of driducks..lmao. It happened to me back in 2005-ish with these.

They are easy to repair with duct tape. You can go for an even more hobo look. Though you are already far down the line with undammaged driducks.