Saturday 25 December 2010

Wheeled Cooler - cooling, collapsable cooler


We recently spent three days visiting San Francisco and stayed in a hotel which furnished a fridge and microwave. We carried our food with us and it stayed cold and fresh during the hours we spent traveling on public transit getting to our hotel. The only problem we had was with the two carrying handles. It would be so much nicer if the handles could convert into one handle so that the cooler could be carried in one hand while the other hand carried a second travel bag or suitcase. Getting on and off buses and climbing up stairs would have been so much easier with a single handle. Columbia 50 Can High Performance Rolling Cooler

Cooler was great for the beach. Only drawback is there's no single handle on the top to carry across the sand. Having 2 handles on the sides made it extremely difficult to carry across the sand when you also were carrying other stuff. We took rope and tied to both side handles to make a strap to carry. Made it much easier. Other than that it was great!

This item keeps everything cold and refreshing even on a hot day. Took it to the beach and the ice and drinks were ice cold even though the temperature was over 95 degrees. Took it to a tailgate and the same result. Cost is reasonanable and it is better than those costing more.

I bought several of these as wedding gifts for our groomsman. 3 of them have already had the wheels literally melt off. The design allows the wheels to rub against the support housing and eventually melt the whole assembly. Be careful not to touch them if you feel some rolling resistance. I burned one of my fingers pretty bad after touching one of them! It failed shortly after....

The cooler is the right size but lacks the extra-pockets space these usually come with. I use mine for a portable refridgerator/home-base while at work and this model has but one large pocket. The top and sides are totally wasted.

This collapsible cooler has a lot of space so you can carry lots of items. It also keep things cool far longer than I expected. Rolls easily, although I wish it had a wider wheel base. It is well made. It stores easily, but because it is soft it tends to sag when it is not full.

Cooler does exactly as described. We have not owned this very long. We have used this cooler once on a 3-day trip. Number one concern is of course "leakage" and this one doesn't leak. We filled the cooler with ice daily but at the end of the day there was still ice remaining. We placed the cooler in the back seat of the car, then it went inside the hotel room at our destination. The weather was not overly hot as the high was in the 70's but the important thing is that it didn't leak. A plus for us is that the cooler folds pretty compact for storage when not in use. It has velcro tabs on the sides (near bottom) that keep the cooler folded flat after you compact it down. And when driving on a road trip it's convenient to just reach thru the small opening on the top to grab a bottled water. (Don't have to unzip the whole top).

When the cooler first arrived, I thought its design was great. However, the very first time we used it, one side of the handle pulled out completely and no matter how we tried to reconnect it to the sleeve, we couldn't get it back in. We've returned the cooler. I've never had to return anything before, but Amazon made the return process very easy.

Purchased this cooler in late May 2011 to use at the Chicago Air and Water Show in August. After just this single use one set of wheels, possibly defective since the unit was manufactured, froze up and would not rotate. A closer inspection revealed that the wheels were rubbing against the wheel mounting bracket since the wheel shaft was misaligned in the bracket. Needless to say, I am extremely disappointed with this product- especially since it carries the Columbia name, which I have found to typically be very reliable and well-made products. Don't waste your money on this item......although as a cooler it functions fine, without the capability to "roll it" I might as well have purchased a cooler bag......at least then I would have had a shoulder strap with which to carry it. - Wheeled Cooler - Cooling - Lawn - Collapsable Cooler'


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