I bought a Helsport tent in 2010. It was quite a lot of money but I always get a good discount from Tamarack as a regular and local customer, plus I part-ex'd some stuff, and sold a few bits on Ebay to fund it so not a great deal of real cash left my bank account. It was a still quite a lot but I thought worth it for a big quality tent. The tent got relatively light use, about 15-20 nights per year until this year when we used it for about 60 nights in USA and Canada. While there the zip on the main flysheet door went weak and eventually wouldn't zip up. So, we used the other entrance but towards the end of the trip that also gave up. While in the USA I emailed Tamarack to find out if there was a Helsport dealer in USA or Canada, or if they knew of a tent repairer. They said to do what we needed to do to keep the tent useable (sew up the zip or something) and they would sort it under guarantee when we got back - the tent was over 5 years old by then, so the offer of a guarantee repair was unexpectedly good. 
I dropped the tent off with Tamarack 4 weeks ago with a little list of minor faults as well the zip issue. They said Helsport would probably authorise a whole new tent and that as the particular model wasn't available anymore it would probably be replaced with their nearest equivalent. I was more than happy with that as I had just expected an "official" repair/replace of the zips. Today they phoned me to say that Helsport had approved the replacement but rather than provide a tent they had credited Tamarack with the retail value of the nearest equivalent (£600) and that Tamarack were passing that on to me, i.e. I have credit note to the value of £600 to spend on anything I like in the store. It gets better too: £600 is way way more than I paid originally, I can have the old tent back to get repaired at my cost, and Tamarack said they would get in any tent (or anything) I wanted as long as they could source it at trade price. Let the shopping begin.
So, while a little disappointed that the tent I originally bought failed relatively early in its life Helsport stood by their product and guarantee. Perhaps it really does pay to get a premium brand. But even better credit goes to Tamarack for wholly passing on the credit note and then being so flexible. They are great team of very friendly people full of good advice and with an interesting and different range of products from Scandinavia and north america as well as some of usual stuff. Highly recommended by me.
http://www.tamarackoutdoors.co.uk/PBCPP ... ID=1586681
I am fancying on of these http://www.tamarackoutdoors.co.uk/PBSCP ... D=15646268
I dropped the tent off with Tamarack 4 weeks ago with a little list of minor faults as well the zip issue. They said Helsport would probably authorise a whole new tent and that as the particular model wasn't available anymore it would probably be replaced with their nearest equivalent. I was more than happy with that as I had just expected an "official" repair/replace of the zips. Today they phoned me to say that Helsport had approved the replacement but rather than provide a tent they had credited Tamarack with the retail value of the nearest equivalent (£600) and that Tamarack were passing that on to me, i.e. I have credit note to the value of £600 to spend on anything I like in the store. It gets better too: £600 is way way more than I paid originally, I can have the old tent back to get repaired at my cost, and Tamarack said they would get in any tent (or anything) I wanted as long as they could source it at trade price. Let the shopping begin.
So, while a little disappointed that the tent I originally bought failed relatively early in its life Helsport stood by their product and guarantee. Perhaps it really does pay to get a premium brand. But even better credit goes to Tamarack for wholly passing on the credit note and then being so flexible. They are great team of very friendly people full of good advice and with an interesting and different range of products from Scandinavia and north america as well as some of usual stuff. Highly recommended by me.
http://www.tamarackoutdoors.co.uk/PBCPP ... ID=1586681
I am fancying on of these http://www.tamarackoutdoors.co.uk/PBSCP ... D=15646268
