Kelty Mantra 7 Aluminum poles

Hi, I have a kelty mantra 7 tent and I was wondering if the gold aluminum poles are supposed to be Pre bent from the factory or do they bent upon first set up ? One of my poles is bent more than the other . I called Kelty to see if they could send a replacement, before I sent them the pole in question they said no! Do to time constraints, I asked what a replacement would cost,Well for one $80.00 shipped. Can they be straightened ? Thanks, HammerHeadHank

Straight poles will normally bend slightly with use. Sometimes they bend to a greater degree when the joint(s) aren't completely seated, or too much pressure is put on the pole. This can happen when one person is attempting to set up a tent that is difficult to assemble 1 pole at a time; to avoid this problem, make sure the pole sleeve doesn't bunch up and hinder assembly, or have another person help by applying tension to another pole while you tension yours. If the pole section that's bent isn't cracked or damaged in a way that will tear a pole sleeve (if the tent has sleeves), and the tent looks normal when pitched, don't worry about it.

Similar situation with me and my Eureka tent. Just bought it a couple of months ago, I was setting it up for the third time (first campout), and one of the segments of the aluminum poles bent almost into a "J" shape while I was pitching the tent. Luckily, there was no crease, and I was able to straighten it somewhat by hand. However it did leave the lip of the segment bent outward, which could possibly catch and tear the tent sleeves.

I was really disappointed with Eureka's customer support. It's a brand new tent, you'd think they'd want to make a good impression on a new customer, but that wasn't the case... They wanted me to send in the old pole which would leave me without a tent pole for 6-8 weeks, and I've got campouts scheduled. They didn't want to cross ship a replacement pole - they wanted me to pay for a new one. I told them to forget it - I'd just repair my current pole to the best of my ability and consider this a lesson learned.

I must have made an impression, a couple of weeks later a "complimentary" pole arrived in the mail. I don't think it's aluminum, unless it's coated with something (it's a brownish gray color), so I don't know what to think of it. I'm going camping this weekend, I guess I'll find out more about it then.

The most reasonable place I've found replacement pole sections is:

http://www.questoutfitters.com/index.html

Unfortunately the only color choice is black.

I have had this tent for a good six years. The gold poles as well as the black have bent. Regardless, this tent has held up well and the bending has not altered the performance of the tent. Use caution when clamping the tent to the poles. I finally broke a clamp. For a family tent, it works rather well for the cost.