Hi Jim.
We have an Inaca Mirage awning on our Abbey 540.
Our awning was bought new from Discover at Preston back in june 2008. It is a 3mtr deep awning instead of the more usual 2.5mtr. This does give more room but on some sites where they provide hardstanding for van + awning, it may overlap the pitch. We wanted ours to use all year round as we are full timing at present, so our awning ha snow been up for 19 months and has shown little sign of wear. The only wear is in the stiching of the built in storm straps. This was caused when we had to endure storms in Feburary and Last december where we had gusts of upto 60Mph.
We liked the zip down external flaps which can make one end a totally private storage area. Also there are plenty of strong anchor points to help you to batten down in a storm.
Your right that Inaca are a spannish firm but even special orders only take 3/4 wks direct from the factory. The company was set up by ex Issabella employee's and they have succeeded in keeping toop of the range quality but keeping prices mid range.
As a company Discover were brilliant with us. We had cause to return our original stock blue awning as we found that the gold trim pieces didn't match on the panels to the main awning. We were given another one without quibble and allowed to take that to our van, swap over the awnings and they then picked up with their courier the faulty awning. Unfortunately the swapped awning was just as mis matched. However discover now ordered the special order red awning free of charge from spain. When that arrived at preston, they checked it and found th e same mis match so they got back in touch with Spain and got a proper job done. Then at their expence again, thye couriered the new awning to us and a few days later arranged pick up.
What a palavor you might say. It probably was, but I haven't met another dealership or manufacturer so dedicated to actually getting what to most would of seemed too much trouble over 10mm of mis match. They went well above and beyond to get a good product even better, even to the point that the manufacturing system was changed to get the result.
The only down side to my awning is the weight of the steel poles. Because it is designed as a seasonal awning, the poles are heavy guage (thickness of steel). I'm going to look into having the roof struts changed to carbon fibre, as there are 7 of them quite a weight saving could be made. I think the main Aframe should still be steel for rigidity.
All things considered I can say we are very satisfied with our awning and given the amount of stick we have given it, it is wearing very well.
Steve L.
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