Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I looked around to find something that could be added to the back of my 2010 Honda Odyssey which could be setup quickly. The TailVeil only takes me about 5 minutes to assemble. Overall, there is nothing better on the market for me. I took off 1 star for no internal support at the back of the tent. I just wish I could turn on the car with the tent attached and open and close the rear tailgate remotely without catching the tent in the tailgate. I'm working on those 2 issues and will edit my review if I find something that works for me. I use a 6'x8' tarp to protect the bottom of the tent and sandbags to weigh down the corners (although the pictures were taken on a dirt area, I had a really hard time putting down tent stakes due to rocks the first time. Hence I used weights in the corners after that to keep it taut). The photos shows how far the skirt comes up on the bumper (nearly to the bottom of the hatch opening) to keep out bugs. There is only 1 adjustment to cinch it around the top and sides. And 2 adjustments to cinch it around the bumper (one going to each side). My Honda is big enough that I didn't have to adjust these to keep the tent tight and flush to the vehicle, either at the top and sides or the skirt along the bumper. The photos show the screen room with my camp chair pushing out the back of the tent. Even though my tailgate is large, I agree with others that it needs some internal support to hold it up the back end to use the full space. When I needed to leave, I closed the tailgate (tricky - see below), zipped up the tent, released the side wheel well catches, and untied the the screen room and rain cover from the roof rack making sure that the tent was pressed down towards the ground near the tailpipe. Coming back is tricky. If you don't line up the car perfectly when the tent is staked down, the liftgate doesn't lift the tent evenly. Having the weights allowed me to shift the floor around after I removed everything I left in it (cooler, chair, camp stove, camp box, etc). With the car gone, it just looks like a bunch of stuff with a tarp over it. I tied the mesh tent to the rainfly as much as possible and added my utility blocks on the corners to make sure it didn't go anywhere while I was gone for the day with the vehicle. I did have an issue when setting it up at the campsite for the first time because the teeth on one of the zippers were damaged. I had to pay to ship it back ($57) and get a new one. But since it had 2 exits, one on each side, I simply used the other side. So what functional problems did I run into? I changed my car's interior lights to LEDs and turned off the back light when the gate was left open (although there is still a lighted power tailgate button even if I turn off all the other lights). I tried to keep the use of the 2nd row power doors to a minimum. But even with all of my current reducing strategies, I still needed a jumpstart to start the car on the 3rd day. Since you can't turn on the car with the tent on the back, I couldn't charge the battery. I'm now looking for a 5 foot flexible insulated (no heat on the tent) exhaust pipe (like they use at car dealerships) to turn the exhaust around and away from the bottom of the tent so I can charge the car for 15 minutes without taking off the tent and moving the car slightly away. Obviously, if I took the car somewhere every day or two, this would not be an issue. A Noco Boost Jump-start also would resolve this issue but I want to be able to turn it on for heat or cooling. Closing the tailgate for the night: This was a chore because the sides of the tent would collapse into the side openings of the tailgate as it came down. I would manually close the tailgate, and when getting near the bottom, move to each side and pull the tent out of the opening, closing it the rest of the way. If the tent had something holding up the back end, I don't believe this would happen. I use the car remote to open the tailgate in the morning. I thought it might scratch the paint but the mesh pretty much stays in place as it opens. It really just lifts the back of the tent up. Finally, the assembly instructions didn't work for me. I always start by lifting the tailgate, putting down my 6'x8' tarp, tying the tent to both sides of my roof rack, and then doing the wheel well catches on both sides. I finish by unzipping the tent and weighting down the corners on the inside positioning them where they should be to keep the tent taut, starting with the corners closet to the car. I then throw the rainfly over the top and tie it to both sides of the roof rack and tuck it under the mesh on the sides of the car and throw on a utility block (Quality Plastics Utility Block) at the back corners. If the tent is tied to the vehicle, it is not going anywhere in a wind storm (yea that happened). The sides of the rainfly flipped back and forth until I tucked them under the mesh at the car sides and weighted the corners. Then the wind just tried to lift it up off the ground. Normally, the tent stakes would hold both the mesh tent and rainfly down.