Ozark Trail "High Performance" cooler - any good?
- Thread starter Blind_Io
- Start date
AFSOC
Explorer
My Ozark Trail 73 only sweats at the large orange ice/water drain, surfaces stay dry. I really like the 73 for use on my boat. Lid seals nicely yet doesn't seem to occasionally create a vacuum like some of the other premium coolers can. Insulates very well. The non skid feet are as advertised, it will stay planted. It is a heavy bugger to load though.
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All in all, I am very satisfied with the Ozark Trail 73 at $193. The Ozark Trail does represent a giant leap in performance from the standard Coleman and Igloo fare and holds it's ground against the pinnacle coolers. I don't feel overall performance is as good as the Yeti Tundra 45 I have experience with. At a sub $200 price point the 73s represent a very good value. To be able to get an OT 73 and a 52 for le$$ than a Tundra 45 offers me more flexibility, more capacity and comparable performance.
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All in all, I am very satisfied with the Ozark Trail 73 at $193. The Ozark Trail does represent a giant leap in performance from the standard Coleman and Igloo fare and holds it's ground against the pinnacle coolers. I don't feel overall performance is as good as the Yeti Tundra 45 I have experience with. At a sub $200 price point the 73s represent a very good value. To be able to get an OT 73 and a 52 for le$$ than a Tundra 45 offers me more flexibility, more capacity and comparable performance.
Hilldweller
SE Expedition Society
Yeah, that's it. Just sweats at the drain.
The more humid it is outside, the more it will drip. I put a microfiber rag under it...
It's build like a brick sh!thouse though. So, for the price, I'm content enough.
I'd have an Rtic if they had any sort of decent order fulfillment.
AFSOC
Explorer
Most of the Ozark Trail products you will quickly pass on the shelf with a snicker. The High Performance cooler line and the 20oz and 30oz tumblers are certainly the exception.
CamFromCI
New member
Hey Everyone,
First of all awesome thread!
I work for the company that designs and produces the Ozark Trail Roto molded coolers for WalMart. Some of you may have noticed I've been involved in discussions over in the tacomaworld forums as well.
Part of my job is to reach out in discussions online and help make it easier for those who are not completely satisfied with our product and have not yet contacted our customer service. So that's what brings me here, but more importantly, I'm here to help with any product related questions and collect feedback from you guys. After all, we want to make the best cooler we can for you.
Seriously, great thread guys and I am definitely going to forward the results of your testing and issues (such as the condensation / drain issues) on to our design team. Thanks for putting in the time on your testing and discussion!
For anything warranty related (like replacement parts), feel free message me here, or our email service team (service(at)ca-innovations(dot)com) and we'll gladly help sort things out.
Naturally, continue to share your unfiltered reviews and testing. It's good to see the issues that arise so we can proactively work on fixing them or provide tips where we can.
Thanks again, looking forward to helping out where I can.
Cam
First of all awesome thread!
I work for the company that designs and produces the Ozark Trail Roto molded coolers for WalMart. Some of you may have noticed I've been involved in discussions over in the tacomaworld forums as well.
Part of my job is to reach out in discussions online and help make it easier for those who are not completely satisfied with our product and have not yet contacted our customer service. So that's what brings me here, but more importantly, I'm here to help with any product related questions and collect feedback from you guys. After all, we want to make the best cooler we can for you.
Seriously, great thread guys and I am definitely going to forward the results of your testing and issues (such as the condensation / drain issues) on to our design team. Thanks for putting in the time on your testing and discussion!
For anything warranty related (like replacement parts), feel free message me here, or our email service team (service(at)ca-innovations(dot)com) and we'll gladly help sort things out.
Naturally, continue to share your unfiltered reviews and testing. It's good to see the issues that arise so we can proactively work on fixing them or provide tips where we can.
Thanks again, looking forward to helping out where I can.
Cam
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Ricer_X_01
Observer
Only the drain area sweats and its minimal. I just put a folded towel under it.
pyrate
Rollin' along
Availability would be the number one concern for me. We see pictures of them in some stores, entire rows of shelves in some cases, yet other stores have never seen one (including employees I have shown the website page). And if stores have them, why is the online store so hit and miss? And the online availability email notification does not work.
It seems that you are involved w/ the company that builds these vs Walmart's overall merchandise plan but I for one ended up buying a RTIC because I couldn't wait around wondering when the Ozark Trail Roto cooler would be available. Even though RTIC took awhile to receive, I knew I had it on order and just had to wait. With Walmart I was either stopping to their stores (3 in my area) every couple of days or trying online and it was like trying to win the lottery. In the end, the trips to the stores stopped (not conveniently located for me) as no sense in burning up the savings in fuel and so I bought one from someone that I knew at least allowed me to do so.
FWIW, if you have an option to pass that along to those that make those decisions that would be great for those still looking for one.
perterra
Adventurer
I drove probably close to 60 miles around DFW looking for one,
Hilldweller
SE Expedition Society
Well, it leaks like a sieve too until you put teflon tape on the threads...
I bought a brass cap and it leaked too. Worse. And sweated even more. I'm guessing that the threads are just ever-so-slightly too small and get even smaller when they're cooled. Could use a softer gasket too.
Thanks for joining the forum and getting in our discussion!
If our feedback leads you do a better drain cap, please contact me --- I'd really appreciate it. The leak has warped the wood of my shelf in my trailer and I'll need to replace it at some point.
I have the 52, btw.
CamFromCI
New member
Hey pyrate, you're right in that stocking and availability decisions are more on Walmart's side of things, but I will definitely pass on your comments and the other comments I've seen here about stock and availability to my team who work with the folks at Walmart.
As for the online store, an alternative tool that I have used in the past has been visualping.io <- It's a free tool that will email you whenever a selected area of a webpage changes. (Such as the area that shows the price and "out of stock"). Though I have found sometimes I get pings when minor changes to the pages are made as well. But it might be a good idea to use both Walmart's email notifications and the visualping.
Thanks again for your input, it's comments like these that help smooth out the growing pains when it comes to bringing a product like this to the market.
Well, it leaks like a sieve too until you put teflon tape on the threads...
I bought a brass cap and it leaked too. Worse. And sweated even more. I'm guessing that the threads are just ever-so-slightly too small and get even smaller when they're cooled. Could use a softer gasket too.
Thanks for joining the forum and getting in our discussion!
If our feedback leads you do a better drain cap, please contact me --- I'd really appreciate it. The leak has warped the wood of my shelf in my trailer and I'll need to replace it at some point.
I have the 52, btw.
I'm reaching out to the design team right now to see if they have any tips or tricks for the drain. Also, if the drain continues to leak or you feel the cap is defective, definitely feel free to reach out to our support team (service(at)ca-innovations(dot)com) and they can see what they can do about sending out a new one.
Hope that helps!
Thanks again guys for your feedback!
Also, if anyone is interested I'd like to share with you guys what I shared with the TacomaWorld forum a few days ago:
We've decided to put together an Advisory Committee of roto cooler users.
Roto Cooler Advisors will have the opportunity to speak with our design team directly and potentially get product in the future to test (and keep). Basically, we've created this committee to learn what your ideal cooler looks like so we can build the best one for you! We want to hear more about how you use your roto cooler.
If you are interested, or know someone that would be, here's a link (it should only take around 1 minute to fill out):
surveymonkey(dot)com/r/RotoCoolerAdvisors (replace the (dot) with . )
Thanks again,
Cam
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