Cooler Advice

[KDM]

Advice:

First decide what you need. Do you need a cooler to hold ice or frozen stuff frozen for a week in the back country or do you need something to keep beers cold for a summer day on the water? Then decide how durable you need it to be. i.e. Are you going to toss it into the back of your truck once a week and have it ride around like that or does it go in the back of the carpeted sport utility once a month? Think handles and hinges here. Then you have to decide on how big. Are you going to be the only one doing the lifting most of the time? I see guys wrestling with these 100 qt coolers on their own and watching it makes my back hurt. Will it be used in a boat quite a bit so will you be tripping over it while netting fish and baiting hooks? Does it need to be bear proof? (Plastic or Metal?) After these basics, it's down to bells and whistles as far as I'm concerned like dividers, drink holders, bottle openers, etc, etc, etc. Hope this gets the wheels turning and you find what fits what you need. Good Luck!!

 

[sweeney]

I bought a 45 and 20 rtic and got a 65 rtic for Christmas, and bought am Ozark softside. Its best explained like buying a diesel truck or high end optics or an expensive fishing rod.....do you necessarily need it.....no, but once you have it you ask yourself why you waited so long. They are all awesome and worth what you pay.

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Especially if you use them

 

[cooter00]

My brother just spent a week in Yellowstone with the Scheels cooler it did awesome one block of ice for the whole week

 

[Fracman]

I know a really smart guy that took a cheaper cooler and sprayed if with foam insulation. Looked ugly as heck but it held ice.

 

[pluckem]

KDM has good advice on really thinking about what you will use the cooler for. I have an RTIC 45 and an RTIC Soft Side 30. The Soft Side 30 sees the most use by far. It's only like 4lbs empty and is large enough to hold enough beverages for 2-4 people for a day on the boat. Got it for $90 or so on sale.

Only downside is having to zipper open and close when you want to get in and out. Not ideal, however that is the trade off of having a slightly smaller and drastically lighter cooler. That soft cooler performs (keeping things cold) better than any other cooler I have had in the past. There is always ice left at the end of the day.

The hardside 45 doesn't see as much use. Only when ice retention is needed for a weekend or the larger capacity is needed.

I will add I see zero reason from a performance or function standpoint to buy a yeti over an RTIC cooler. If you want a yeti because they have a cool name or just to have one that's fine.... But you can not make the argument "you get what you paid for" when comparing Yeti to RTIC or some other similar manufactured cooler.

 

[huntinforfish]

I own a Coleman Extreme (Large one), Yeti (Roadie) and some other cheap POS. The Coleman works great and will hold ice in shade for a few days. The Yeti is basically my one day/boat cooler due to size. The cheap POS is the fill it with whatever I don't want in the other coolers. Usually used for transporting dead stuff, extra beer and whatever else for short time periods. I got the Yeti as a gift, but I would have likely bought one eventually and the previous boat cooler held ice for about 2 hours. Lots of good coolers out there and there are just as many opinions. You get what you pay for like everything else. My only recommendation is to get white if there are options. My bother has the white roadie and mine is tan, the surface temps in the sun are drastically different. I would think this has an adverse effect even if there is over an inch of insulation.

 

[Glass]

Thanks for all the advice! Lots of good stuff. For the most part, I will be using the cooler for beverages on the river or for other activities. It would also be used occasionally for long hunting trips. After hearing everyone and doing some additional research I think I am sold on the RTIC brand, most likely the 45. The price is good and the reviews are good. The only issue is they are on back order and wont ship till late August.

I agree with Sweeney. I bought a good coffee mug a few years back and can never go back to a cheap one. Something that holds heat/cold for hours and hours is well worth the money.

 

[MuskyManiac]

So funny how people love to slam Yeti, yet everyone makes a comparison of their cooler to the Yeti.

I bought the lunchbox size RTIC soft cooler. There is no comparison in the quality of materials and zipper of a Yeti soft-sided. Plus the chemical smell from the RTIC stunk up my entire garage for a couple weeks. You can justify to yourself why the cooler you bought is just as good as a Yeti, but it is not.

 

[ItemB]

I have and RTIC 65 that I got for $175 on sale last winter I think have used it a few times this summer, so far I have no complaints keeps beer and ice just as good as my fishing partners yeti(not a knock on yeti they make a great cooler just to rich for my blood). I don't have no first hand experience but have heard and read a lot of good things about the cabelas polar coolers. They are more than rtic but still cheaper than a yeti. I think the RTIC is the best bang for the buck and will be better than weekend warrior/ goes a a couple week long trips a year every needs. If I went on a lot of hunting or fishing trips or traveled a lot, I would probaly bite the bullet and buy a yeti, but for me the the RTIC does just fine and saves me $200 to buy beer with to fill up the cooler.

 

[Bfishn]

As a few others have said the Cabelas are definitely worth a look. They have tested better than Yeti and are cheaper. They also have a compatible wheeled cart that several times a year you can get for free with purchase of a cooler. Its not that the Yeti doesn't make a good product, its that you are paying 2X what you should to fund all the damn marketing.

 

[pluckem]

So funny how people love to slam Yeti, yet everyone makes a comparison of their cooler to the Yeti.

I bought the lunchbox size RTIC soft cooler. There is no comparison in the quality of materials and zipper of a Yeti soft-sided. Plus the chemical smell from the RTIC stunk up my entire garage for a couple weeks. You can justify to yourself why the cooler you bought is just as good as a Yeti, but it is not.

The comparison is made because everybody knows they were the first company to really market high end coolers and one could say pretty much created the market.
Only slam I have on Yeti is the percent markup they put on their product. Consumers are paying for their marketing, distribution systems, and greater overhead costs.

RTIC and many others coolers in the business are based off of social media campaigns and the distribution consists of internet orders being filled by a single warehouse. They can make a business case work with lower overhead and pass it along to consumers. I have no problem with that.

 

[LBrandt]

Got the big white fridge (nick name) that I fill with water filled, frozen 20 oz soda bottles. Keep in topper on pickup and disperse to smaller coolers when needed. Refreeze when I get back home. The 20 oz bottles fill in nicely with walleys in extreme cooler until we get back home or to the cleaning station. Just hose off bottles from fish cooler and refreeze. No need to buy ice. Cheap and it works.

 

[raider]

As a few others have said the Cabelas are definitely worth a look. They have tested better than Yeti and are cheaper. They also have a compatible wheeled cart that several times a year you can get for free with purchase of a cooler. Its not that the Yeti doesn't make a good product, its that you are paying 2X what you should to fund all the damn marketing.

they will prolly b in debt for 20 years from the cost of developing and testing a brand new concept... pretty damn cheap to cut up a cooler to reverse engineer it, find manufacturers to change just enough to get by patent laws, and take it to market beating the originators prices due to very little r&d...

pricing will stabilize once the new start ups gain the market share they want and yeti gets their initial investment paid off... in time it will become another chevy - ford - dodge thing...

 

[Captain Ahab]

they will prolly b in debt for 20 years from the cost of developing and testing a brand new concept... pretty damn cheap to cut up a cooler to reverse engineer it, find manufacturers to change just enough to get by patent laws, and take it to market beating the originators prices due to very little r&d...

pricing will stabilize once the new start ups gain the market share they want and yeti gets their initial investment paid off... in time it will become another chevy - ford - dodge thing...

My guess is Yeti will try to make "improvements" to keep the profit margin up. Also, they will be busy suing others. I bet a "Super Yeti" prototype is sitting on the desk of a few execs as we speak.

 

[Kurtr]

Wasn't orca doing the roto molded thing before yeti maybe not but them and pelicans are every bit as good. We run them all guiding and the pelicans are the most durable as it is the only one we haven't broke.

 

[Zogman]

Prefer the rope type handles (Orca) way better than the solid (Pelican). Just my opinion.

 

[Fisherman25]

So funny how people love to slam Yeti, yet everyone makes a comparison of their cooler to the Yeti.

I bought the lunchbox size RTIC soft cooler. There is no comparison in the quality of materials and zipper of a Yeti soft-sided. Plus the chemical smell from the RTIC stunk up my entire garage for a couple weeks. You can justify to yourself why the cooler you bought is just as good as a Yeti, but it is not.

Sorry but I'm calling BS. We've taken pelican, yeti, cabelas and rtic coolers on extended hunting/fishing trips as a large group. There are things we like better about all of them, but our least favorited as a group was yeti. Pelican and cables had the best ice retention. Durability seems to be a toss up all around. I'll try to come back with a full comparison but bang for buck we called rtic 1, cabelas 2 and pelican 3.

Yeti is just he Kleenex of the bunch.

 

[shorthairsrus]

Biggest complaint with an overrated yeti. U can't lift em by yourself. Nor can u leave in back of truck

 

[Zogman]

Biggest complaint with an overrated yeti. U can't lift em by yourself. Nor can u leave in back of truck

Padlock and Chain

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Sorry but I'm calling BS. We've taken pelican, yeti, cabelas and rtic coolers on extended hunting/fishing trips as a large group. There are things we like better about all of them, but our least favorited as a group was yeti. Pelican and cables had the best ice retention. Durability seems to be a toss up all around. I'll try to come back with a full comparison but bang for buck we called rtic 1, cabelas 2 and pelican 3.

Yeti is just he Kleenex of the bunch.

Just curios. Where you rate the Grizzly? It is about 30% cheaper than the Yeti.

 

[pluckem]

they will prolly b in debt for 20 years from the cost of developing and testing a brand new concept... pretty damn cheap to cut up a cooler to reverse engineer it, find manufacturers to change just enough to get by patent laws, and take it to market beating the originators prices due to very little r&d...

You cant even give Yeti credit for concept. Engel had a roto-molded cooler on the market in 2004. 2 years before Yeti even formed as a company.

Look at the following pics from the 2004 SEMA show on Engels. Hmmm...



Im sure there was some money spent on R&D, but come on... IT IS A COOLER. Plastic, insulation, hinge, straps, and handles. Yeti just had and still has a great marketing strategy. Especially since they seemed to convince the world they created this idea in their garage and everyone else just copied. They changed the design just enough to not infringe on the Engel design. I believe it was in the way they incorporated the lid straps to not have any metal or exposed hardware.