Exped down mat issue

[baggins]

Hi Guys,
i thought i'd ask on here. my good lady has an exped down mat. whilst camping this weekend we noticed that although pumped up early eve, by the following eve it had lost some of its inflation. only takes a couple of pumps to get back to pressure though. so was wondering, it this just the effects of atmospheric pressure and temperature differential or is there a bit of a leak?
Anybody experienced anything similar?

Cheers

Baggins

 

[Mesquite]

I've got exactly the same issue with my exped synmat.

Like you I've got to give it a couple pumps each evening before bed. I keep meaning to check it out for a puncture but never get around to it.

 

[Nohoval_Turrets]

Yeah, I've wondered about this too. It seems not be quite as airtight as my Thermarest mats. I don't think mine can have acquired any leaks because I only ever use it on a camp bed. It's not really an issue, because it never deflates by much. But it's noticeable.

 

[Toddy]

Mine did that until I sussed out putting the bung in properly
It's not quite as easy as it seems, but once you have got it, you know to look next time and make sure it really is all the way down.
Definitely a knack to doing it though.

atb,
M

 

[MarkN]

Hi Baggins,

I have an Exped Downmat 9LW and I have a similar thing. When I asked the question at the place I bought mine, I was told it's due to a couple of things. If the mat is inflated in the warm air of an afternoon / evening it will lose some pressure due to the air temperature falling and you will also lose a little pressure as the air is pushed out from the valves etc.

If I stay somewhere for two nights, I always top up in the morning and this seems to keep the mat up.

Hope that helps?
Cheers
Mark

 

[baggins]

Great replies, Thanks a lot folks.
i guess checking the valve is the first thing and then just adding air when its needed.

Cheers
Baggins

 

[Wintrup]

I've had 2 Exped down mats. I sent the first one back because the down bunched and left huge cold spots. The second one just slowly seemed to lose air, which over time got worse and worse. I found a Youtube clip with where a bloke had exactly the same problem and found that his mat had multiple perforations. I thought I'd check to see if that was the problem with mine, after a horrible experience on a motorbike tour where the mat need pumping up in the early hours, only to be flat in the morning. I smothered the mat with water and detergent and then folded the mat and put my body weight on it. It was full of small to medium leaks. Useless.

The Exped is without doubt the most comfortable, warm mat I've ever had, but I'll never buy another. At the price they ought to last at least ten years, but there are countless stories of the sort of failure I had, so they're not worth the risk. Shame.

 

[Toddy]

Honestly, in all the years they've been mentioned and discussed here, your's is the first real complaint about them.
Exped have a brilliant rep for repair/replacement of faulty kit…..did you contact them ? and what did they reply ?

cheers,
Toddy…..who most definitely will buy another Exped down mat if hers dies. It's had a lot of use and it's still sound.

 

[Wintrup]

A simple search term of 'Exped Down failure' will bring up lots of examples of failures, in particular the phenomenon of perforations. As I wrote, I did contact Exped after the first failure and got sent a second one that failed something like a year or two later. Two failures on such an expensive item after not such a lot of use, is enough for me to write it off as unreliable and therefore not suitable for the sort of long tours I do. It could just be rotten luck, but the evidence on the interweb suggests otherwise. I wish I had the same experience as you, as it's a luxurious mat and very comfortable, but unfortunately my experience has been negative.

 

[Quixoticgeek]

I had this, then discovered that the deflate bung wasn't in properly. Putting that in, and everything has been good since.

J

 

[Gray]

I had this on my downmat 9, I found that turning the mat so the valves are on the bottom solved the problem.