Adventure Kings 4x4 Awning Review
If you’re into off road touring one of the best accessories you can get is an awning. Mount it on your roof bars and instantly you’ve added a spacious shelter to your vehicle that unrolls and sets up in seconds. Awnings are ideal for cooking, eating, camping – especially if you add a tent kit – or just relaxing in the shade after a long day’s driving. They’re good value for money too, with some really good ones available for under $300. It’s possible to shave a few dollars off if you shop around though, and one product that’s been getting some attention recently is the Adventure Kings range.
Adventure Kings has four awnings on offer. There are three with a 2 metre width, extending 2, 2.5 or 3 metres out from the side of the vehicle. Then there’s an extra-wide 2.5 metre model, that’s also 2.5 metres long. The extra width of this one is a really nice feature; it turns the space beneath from adequate to ample. It would be nice to see a longer one in this width as well, but unfortunately the square one is it.
So what’s the awning itself like? Overall it’s pretty similar to most of the competition. There’s an extruded aluminium base that fits to your roof bars or rack with three supplied L brackets. These seemed to work fine and the base was secure enough. Attached to it is a zip-up PVC bag that holds the actual awning and the poles. Open the zip and what unrolls is a length of medium-weight ripstop canvas. This is a reasonable material, and as long as it’s not stored damp it should last for years, but we were slightly disappointed not to see a protective lining on it. You can get a Tough Toys awning for the Adventure Kings $299 RRP list price that includes a reflective silver coating. That doesn’t just completely block UV radiation; it also reflects the sunlight, so it stays cooler under the awning. The Adventure Kings awnings have an interesting wrap around piece on each side that comes down over the horizontal poles. We’re not sure exactly what this piece is used for as none of the accessories clip or zip onto these sections. We found when packing up the awning after use, these flaps made the awning difficult to roll around the main aluminium channel.
Of course you can find the Adventure Kings at a heavy discount without too much trouble, so it’s probably going to cost you less, but this is a feature that’s worth paying slightly more for. When buying an awning, do yourself a favour and walk into the stores to check out the thickness of the canvas. With some of brands of awning, you can see right through to the fluro-lights on the ceiling of the showroom!
The rest of the awning – the side bars and poles – are the usual aluminium tube, and while they seem slightly light they should be robust enough for most weather conditions. The upright poles are adjustable, so you can vary the slope of the canopy or compensate for rough ground.
There are a few accessories available for the Adventure Kings. You can get an extension sheet that will screen one end, or – with a couple of extra poles – give you a longer patch of shade. For camping there’s also a full tent kit that hangs under the awning frame to give you an enclosed room. Tents are available for all sizes of awning.
For a standard awning the Adventure Kings is pretty reasonable. The materials seem fine and it’s all well put together, plus you can usually find it at a good price. The design is starting to show its age slightly though – as well as silver coated canvas, similar products can now be had with built-in LED lighting and other handy features. Adventure Kings is also using the known to be brittle aluminium pole hinges – there are much better options on the market these days. If you’re looking for a no-frills awning this could do fine, but personally we’d look around a bit more first. It’s worth noting that the same company that owns Tigerz11 also owns Adventure Kings.
