Marmot Precip, dud or singular bad experience?

[Ian]

I had some sort of Mountain Hardware PU coated jacket that worked well enough for a few years until I somehow lost it prior to a trip earlier this summer.  Over the years I’ve heard people recommend the Marmot Precip as a safe purchase for a jacket in its class.  I figured for $70, why not?

I’ve owned it for less than two months, have only worn it twice (both in rain or mixed precipitation including this weekend), and it seems like this jacket has no DWR at all.  Yesterday it wetted through in no time flat.  I think most people though that this was a jacket that I’ve abused and used for a couple years, and were surprised to hear that it’s only been worn in the field twice, including yesterday.

For me, this is unsatisfactory performance, even for a cheap entry level rain jacket.  Is this the norm for the Precip or did I just happen to buy one that rolled off the line on a friday before a holiday weekend?

[James holden]

give it a hand quick wash (no soap), a good rinse, and throw it in the dryer at the lowest heat setting for ~15 min … if that doesnt work you can try the above again with grangers or reviveX (not nikwax) DWR wash

the precip is the basically the cheapest big name budget rain jacket you can buy especially on sale … the older versions have had serious issues with delamination …

even worse marmot warranty on those is crap  if they delaminate (do a search for “marmot delamination”) … quite a few BPLers over the years have had issue with marmot not covering delaminating rain shells

i know folks on reddit and some over places go ga ga over marmot precips and recommend em … the problem with such forums is that unlike BPL there isnt sufficient thread history about such products (BPL has over a decades worth with threads that get bumped as users update their experiences) … not to mention quite a few reddit folks are pretty new vs BPLers

you can try contacting marmot and see if youre luckier than many folks …

disclaimer … i own and use the precip pants that i picked up with some store credit … it hasnt delaminated yet so far … also marmot quality control is crap … i went through 2 brand new hydrogen bags this year (one had a down baffle with no fill, the other had a seriously underfilled baffle), great design poor QC

;)

[Ian]

I certainly can’t cite every source I’ve read over the years but I have to wonder if the folks who’ve recommended it actually used it in the backcountry.  If I put this jacket on a hanger, other than missing tags, you couldn’t tell that it’s not brand new.  There is no functioning DWR on this jacket at all.

[James holden]

ian … if yr jacket is clean and there is no water beading even on low abrasion areas (the hood top or the chest of the jacket for example)

then you have a defective jacket …

try contacting marmot and cross your fingers

;)

[Paul S.]

Return it if you can. Precip has always been terrible.

I saw a basic PU rain jacket at Costco for $25. You’re better off with that.

[Ian]

Thanks again for the input.  I mistakenly assumed that all of these low end PU jackets performed about the same but it didn’t occur to me that the jacket wouldn’t have any sort of DWR.  Back to REI I go to find another jacket.

[Jeff McWilliams]

I wonder if this is a result of an attempt to move away from C8 PFOA chemicals traditionally used in DWR treatments.  Maybe they’re trying new formulations and having trouble.  It doesn’t excuse the result, just trying to identify what changed.

I have a Marmot Precip I bought about 3 years ago.  I only use it for casual “front country” rain jacket use.

[Thomas Conly]

I’ve owned four precip jackets because I kept sending them away on warranty and getting a new one. They are TERRIBLE jackets. All of mine had no noticible DWR to speak of and they delaminated almost immediately. I used the first two during the winter and thought maybe they delaminated because of the extreme cold. I didn’t use the third one in the cold and it wetted out so I tried adding DWR. I sprayed it on both my jacket and my dad’s old jacket. His worked like a charm; mine didn’t work worth a darn. The third jacket delaminated after a summer too and I sent it away on warranty again. I’ve kept the fourth one because there’s no sense sending something away on warranty if it doesn’t work anyway. I have no idea where the good perception of the precip comes from.

[Diane Pinkers]

I agree that the Precip is crap. But then, I’ve had issues with Outdoor Research, too. The difference is that OR stands behind their warranty. I’m wearing an OR jacket right now as my everyday wear, so we’ll see.

North Face held up better, my only beef with the jacket was that the pockets had a strange angle, so that I was constantly losing stuff out of the pockets when I sat down.  Patagonia also did better.  Mind you, this is for my everyday wear for PNW conditions,  not backpacking,  so weight wasn’t a factor. I have gone to a Zpacks Challenger jacket for backpacking , so that I didn’t have the mess of having to maintain a DWR on a jacket that gets stuffed in and out of a pack much of the time. I wore it under a pack for the first time, and I’m noticing some wear where the hip belt rubbed on it, we’ll see if it changes the performance.

 

[Jennifer Mitol]

I guess I had good luck ;)

I had a precip for a few years, used it in Patagonia – it was great! never delaminated, kept me dry from the outside (not so much from the inside…).  Worked great.

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