Stanley Thermos Review
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Hiking Gear
UPDATE: Please read the update and the readers comments below. It seems the newer Stanley thermos does not hold up like the one in this review. Since moving their production over to China there seems to be a significant drop in quality.
After being disappointed with other brands of thermoses in the past, I really wasn’t expecting that much from the Stanley Thermos. I heard that they were tough, but I figured it was probably just a marketing gimmick. Boy was I wrong!
I abuse pretty much all of my gear. From driving off with cameras on my back bumper to dropping gear down the side of a mountain, it was nice to finally have a product that could stand up to my abuse. I was really impressed with the strength of everything from the thermos handle to the handy little cup cap.
I brought a couple of Stanley Thermoses out to Sedona over the weekend and after using them around the campground I am now a loyal fan! I was so impressed with them that I will be bringing them on all our future trips.
Why We Liked the Classic Stanley Thermos:
- Very tough – They stood up to all sorts of falls and even a few tumbles downs some rocks. I can see why people say that these things last a lifetime. The Classic Stanley Thermos stood up to pretty much any abuse that we could throw at it.
- Kept everything we put in them very hot. In fact, I filled the thermos up with boiling water at around 9pm and at 8am the next morning it was still hot enough to steep some tea. (The thermos was left out on a table in temperatures around 50 degrees)
- Very convenient. It was nice to have Hot water waiting in the morning without having to start the fire.
- The Lid is tough and doubles as a drinking cup.
- It was nice to see a company that still cares about quality. I have tried many cheap knock off Thermoses in the past and I will tell you that none of them compared to the Stanley. We highly recommend it to anyone who is thinking about adding thermoses to their camping gear. This is one product that you will not have to worry about replacing anytime soon.
Looking for a Stanley Thermos?
- Stanley 1.1Qt Classic Vacuum Bottle
at amazon
Update: We have had a number or people write in with their own reviews which you can see below. The thermos we reviewed was from a couple of years ago and worked great for us. We will be reviewing this years model very soon and if we find that the new thermos does not reflect our review we will re-post our new findings.
i had a thermos and it wouldnt stay hot over 3 hrs. so they sent me a new one and its doing the same thing. 3 hrs. and coffee gets cold. is there something im doing wrong
Evidently, nothing has changed since this review! Bought this one for my husband yesterday. We were replacing a Stanley from about 10-12 years ago, which still works great, by the way! It just looks completely beat up, because it has been! The bottom is off, it’s dented and rusty but it still keeps things hot!
You really can tell the quality is completely different when you first pick it up! The old Stanley feels weighty and substantial! The new one feels like a tin can! Needless to say, my husband texted me at 9:00am today and asked me to take the old one out of the recycling bin, because his coffee was cold! That was only 3 hrs.! I want to know if there are any made in the USA anymore? Sorry Stanley!…you’ve lost our business!
Dennis, I don’t think you did anything wrong. For the past eight years the Stanley bottles have been made in China and not the USA. When they were still made in the USA by Aladdin Stanley they had a layer of charcoal in between the two layers of stainless steel and they were heavier. The Chinese made bottles are lighter because they don’t have the charcoal layer and I don’t think the stainless steel is as thick. Sure, Stanley-PMI says that the bottles are made to the same rigid standards as before but I’m not convinced.
I believe the thermos weighs to much for back packing or hauling anywhere on foot! Car Camping yes or if your traveling with a mule!…Hey I really like your blog keep up the good work. I think it’s one of the best out there well put together!
I too have purchased 3 stanley thermos and had one replaced by the company. I thought I was doing something wrong, but I’m having the same problem as every else seems to. I don’t mind paying a low price for China junk, but these thermos were over $25 each. Now I’m paying high quality prices for China garbage.
I had the same problem with it keeping things hot for olny a few hours,then my freind told me to get rid of the stopper that has the holes for pouring and replace it with the old solid type that you have to remove to pour the coffee,and I did and now it keeps hot for 8-10 hours,also remember to pre-heat and the more times you open it the colder it gets.
Where did you find the old style stopper?
I lost my old Stanley Thermos which was made in the 1970′s and worked great, it is buried somewhere in the road I was building. We picked up a new Thermos at Walmart in Okotoks Alberta, $29.99. I was thinking it was way lighter than my old one but its a Stanley so I went ahead and bought it. The next morning I poured hot coffee into the thermos as I have been doing for many many years and when I went to have my first cup 2 hrs later it was only warm. What the heck is up with that. I decided to try to warm up the thermos that night and poured boiling hot water into it over night and in the morning it was cold. I am not impressed, yes it was made in China and yes its a piece of junk. I will never recommend a new Stanley Thermos to anyone again. $30 down the drain and because I live in a isolated area I can’t even buy a real thermos which as far as I’m concerned will be anything but a stanley when I do get back to a city.
Got my stanley in 1985 (great product). Called stanley to replace the old one cause something is rattling on the bottom of the thermos. The thermos still works fantastic keep my coffee hot for more than 3 hrs.
Called stanley, they replace the thermos. The new thermos is a piece of junk. It’s is about half the weight of the old one. It only keeps my coffee hot approx 2-3 hrs. It is no where built to the same specs (material too) as the older stanley’s.
Recommend consumers don’t spend your money on the new stanley thermos.
I couldn,t say it any better……Jerry Deschamps posting on August 31st is right on……it’s a piece of junk. I also had one back in the day……it did keep my coffee hot. With the new Stanley you’re lucky if it’s warm after about 3 hours…..don’t waste your money.
My husband is a coal miner who takes a thermos of coffee to work with him. He noticed after a few hours, his coffee was barely warm. We had an old Aladdin thermos that we saved “just in case”; put hot coffee in and 24 hours later still hot. At the same time, added hot coffee to the newer thermos, not even warm. Definitely a difference in the US made version and even if a little more expensive to purchase, would gladly pay for quality.
I have a Stanley thermos that I bought new in 1992 and it still works great. I don’t like the pour through stoppers though because they always seem to leak, even the new replacements.
For those of you that want the old “made in the USA” ones, go on eBay and they have tons of them. I just bought another one made in 1989 and its in mint condition.
Does anyone have a source for the old solid #11 stoppers.?
I bought a Stanley Bolt thermos about 2 months ago. It worked great up until about about a week ago. I followed the care and cleaning instructions to the letter. And my coffee only stays hot for a couple of hours. I thought that I had done something wrong, but it appears that I have not. Although I will add that I did drop it once, it fell all of two feet onto a concrete floor. They are supposed to be tougher that that I thought. I ordered a new stopper from Stanley ($12.00) to see if it takes care of the problem. I will post again when I get and test it. Thanks to everyone here for your input into this.
I purchased a 12 oz wide mouth food thermos about a year ago. Worked great for a couple months then my soup was at best warm after 3 hours. The tag on the thermos says ‘hot for 12 hours’. Took it back to Target and got an exchange. That one worked great for a couple months and then soup room temp after about 3 hours. Target will not replace. I am EXTREMELY dissapointed with what I thought was an excellent brand and expensive thermos!! I see I am not alone!!
I bought a stanley thermos from Walmart & they won’t give me another one or refund my money. It will not keep my coffee hot –only a few hours. I turkey hunt & i end up with cold coffee in 3 hours—what is wrong? I am very upset about this problem. What should I do? I got to have my hot coffee when i go & hunt them wild TURKEY’S. Please help me stanley company. Alton Obrian
Stanley Thermos Sucks as well as China
Hmmm, guess I am not alone. I have the same model (stamped 20-00077 on bottom – made in China). I have had it for over a year now, and it seemed to work fine for the about a year – kept liquids hot for 12 hrs — but now it is ineffective, going from steaming hot to cold in 6 hours. Not impressed, and by the sounds of it, I am stuck with a heavy water bottle now, despite the ‘Lifetime Warranty’ logo I see on their website beside the product. What the heck does the warranty mean???
I recieved my new thermos from Stanley, and I am pleased to report that it works great. I strongly recommend that if you have a Stanley thermos that doesn’t work properly to e-mail them at their website. They responded to mine within 24 hours of me sending it. They sent me a brand new thermos and did not require that I send my old one back.
My guess is, that Stanley don’t make them themselves and that the internals of the good ones are made by Thermos, who seems unbeatable in this field.
I doubt you can get anything better than this one: http://www.thermos.com/product_details.aspx?ProdID=489&CatCode=BEVG&q=
I absolutely hate this thermos. In the summer it did pretty good at keeping my coffee hot but now that the weather has gotten cold it is only lukewarm after 2 hours and I work inside, I am sure that if I worked outside it would be ice cold after 2 hours. I will never buy another Stanley thermos. I had a thermos I bought at Dollar General 10 years ago for $5 and it would keep coffee hot all day and would still be useing it but I dropped it and it broke. I won’t give Stanley another $30.
I will never buy another Stanley thermos again, or while it’s made in china.
I like the Stanley website talking about the blue collar toughness of this thermos.
and from the review here it is china made a classic thermos into junk, just like I thought.
I would have paid 10 more dollars for the old american standard that made this thermos great again in the USA!
I see a few more people have posted since my last post. I would like to restate that if you have problems with your Stanley Thermos, THEY WILL REPLACE IT!!!! All you have to do is e-mail them.
http://www.shopstanley-pmi.com/cc_contactus.asp
You have taken a classic Stanley thermos and turned it into
classic junk. My old Stanley 1980′s kept me in hot coffee
all day at work. My new China junk model gives me my first cup hot, and its all down hill from that point on.
Can’t believe that I paid $30 for this worthless Chinese
wonder, never again Stanley until you come back to Brentwood,
TN where american quality was built in.
I have always had a Stanley Thermos, because I don’t mind paying for quality and Stanley was alway a quality product. As a truck driver I drink alot of coffee and my new Stanley Thermos is a piece of poop! It will only keep my coffee warm for about 2-3 hours. Shame on you Stanley for taking jobs away from Americans and then charging the same Americans big bucks for such a useless product!!
We have several of the different Stanley thermoses, and have never had a problem. My husband’s tall Classic thermos I can put coffee in it in the morning and when he comes home at night it is still hot. I bought him the 17oz classic food jar and it is the same way, it will stay hot all day long. 1 problem we had was on the food jar it has a rubber seal that had broke. I am not really sure on how this happened, but I wrote to the company and they were really helpful within in 10 days I had a brand new one. The company is all about keeping satisfied customers. I will never buy anything but a Stanley!
I bought a 17oz. Stanley thermos a few years ago and it stopped working. So I called them and they sent me a new one, no questions asked. I used it a few times and now this one doesn’t keep my soup cold after 5 hours. Like someone said above, the whole thing is hot and you can tell it’s losing heat. I even boiled water and put it in for 20 minutes before I put my soup in in the morning and it still doesn’t work!! SO I just called them and they are sending me another…….we’ll see! ):
such a waste…. another great american company turned into junk after being shipped to china!!!!
warning…..DO NOT BUY MADE IN CHINA stanley thermos….they are not what they use to be. they are about half the weight and do not have the charcoal liner in between the layers for the extra insulation.
The consensus here is the Stanley newer models made in China are junk. I had the same problem with a Target bought Stanley Thermos. It lasted less than a month.
My question is, what’s the consensus here on why Stanley will continue to allow this to go on? I’m perplexed reading all these threads of the same problem. The reason I’m here today is, my wife captured an pre 2002 Vacuum bottle that appears to have the same problem. After reading this, I’m thinking I keep the bottle and try a new stopper. There is no sense in sending it in for a new Chinese made bottle. I hope Stanley gets their collective sh*t together before it’s to late.
May everyone enjoy hot coffee again someday:)
I bought a Stanley Bolt thermos two weeks ago. It worked fine for a few days but then it just stopped keeping my coffee hot. By morning break it was lukewarm. I noticed the outside would get hot right after I filled it like it was no longer insulating. Called the company and they had me return it to the hardware store. I exchanged it for another model but all they carried was the Stanley brand so I kept the tags & receipt just in case. What a disappointment.
I had the same problems with the new stanleys. I finally found an older 1987 1 quart Stanley with the cooler that it attaches to. I got it from the flea market for 7 bucks for both. Yea they took a little cleaning but man there’s nothing like an old Stanley to keep the coffe hot. There slogan should be ” used to be built to last”
SAME THING! Darned thing is lukewarm in a couple hours. I knew there was a problem when the thermos was hot on the exterior within minutes of pouring in my coffee. LAME!!! I’ll take the extra weight, just make em better Stanley!
I had an old stanley thermos i bought in the 80s and was good until i ran over it with my truck ,so i bought a new one last year ,made in china of course ,and my coffe is cold in 2 hr tops im very dissapointed ,they uste to make a good product i will never buy another stanley
my family and I have a older stanley thermos i put hot tea in it and used it in sub-zero tempatures and the tea was still hot i saw plumes of steam i love that thermos havent tried the new ones yet
I had a stanley thermos for years couldn’t have been happier but then it wouldn’t keep hot I returned it to a stanley thermos supplier,which gave us a brand new one, I was so happy to get another stanley thermos,BUT WHAT HAPPENED,this one wouldn’t keep hot either,,I was given a smaller one it kept hot for a few months but now it doesn’t keep hot either,tried to replace them with the warranty like I did before but I’m told to go directly to the manufacture,hit another brick wall,cant find one in Australia.Could someone please help me out here? Where do I go from here?
I want to know what year China first product for Stanley Thermos ??
Not sure when they switched over but PMI purchased the Stanley Brand back in 2002…. I think that’s when the problems may have started.
I have had my 2 qt. Stanley for about 5 years. It is the made in China one but it worked pretty well for the first few years. I broke the cap, got a replacement and it continued to work OK for about 6 months. Now, my coffee is cold in 3 hours. Could it be the cap??? I hate to get rid of the thermos. This thermos and I have done alot of work together but I can’t/won’t drink cold coffee. Judgeing by the comments on this site Stanley should do the research and fix the problem. I’ll try a new cap and see what happens.
Hi
I bought a Stanley 1.9ltr thermos flask while on holidays in Victoria in January this year and it worked well for a couple of months but has suddenly just stopped keeping the water hot within 2 hours of filling it. Can anyone tell me a South australian depot where i can send it to claim my warranty as i have searched the internet and can only find a USA contact.thanks
I can’t believe in 2002 they closed the usa plant…to bad they made a good product. Now they’re making them in china with a much lesser quality …Figures… The usa is putting it self in this economical downfall due to outsourcing! No jobs wonder why.. Kinda reminds me of craftsman tools they were going to be outsourced to china people complained and wrote to the company and the tools are still made in the usa… As far as I know.. Shouldn’t we write to whoever owns the stanley name now and provide jobs to needy americans! I’m tired of buying china let’s the little sticker say made in the usa
I thought I was crazy. Now I realize it wasn’t me, it was the product.I purchased a new stanley because I remember as a kid how great they were but couldn’t afford one then. It is absolutely worthless for keeping temperature. I have thrown it away along with the $30 I spent on it.
We also purchased one of these crappy thermos’, we paid $60 and the same thing happened. My husband works in contruction and many of his work mates have had the same problem. Typical Chinese crap (cheap and nasty) but you still pay the same price as before, what a rip off.
My husband also works construction and the same thing is happening to him. After a couple of hours coffee is only luke warm. I will be changing brands because this is the second one i bought for him thinking the first was a defected, but no i was wrong the product is just junk!
JUST A NOTE FOR THE STANLEY PRODUCT MANAGERS
Bring back the factory from china maybe you can save your line of products.
!!!!DO NOT BUY A STANLEY THERMOS!!!!
Yes, Stanley will replace, but what’s the point if the replacement is as worthless as the original. I WILL NEVER BUY ANOTHER STANLEY. F*@!ing China lovin’ wh*?es.
!!!!DO NOT BUY A STANLEY THERMOS!!!!
Bought a Stanley thermos back in the 1970s. It still works great! Coffee is still hot long after 12 hours. But I purchased a rather large one and so when I wanted to carry less liquid, I bought a new 20oz. What a waste! Coffee cold in less than 3 hours. I sent it back and Stanley sent me a new one. Same thing. Coffee cold in less than 3 hours. I figured that maybe it was the design of the 20oz, so I bought another large one 2L because old one had no handle and was a bit hard to pour. Same thing happened. I was sent another. In all, I was sent three replacement thermoses from Stanley. None of the replacements work and the originals are junk. I have 7 Stanley thermoses in all and only the 1970s model works. That is because it is lined with charcoal. Stanley thermoses will not work unless they start using insulation such as charcoal.
Don’t waste money on these thermoses until they start making them in America again, using American technology and craftsmanship!
This is a bad economy and those people who do have money to spend are being more careful. They are also beginning to be more patriotic and buying American. Stanley should get the message. But it may be too late. Maybe Stanley is a Chinese owned company, in which case, it won’t be coming home.
I have a previous comment on this post(jun 29) I say someone should start a petition(I’d sign it) and use good ole freedom of speech and send it to PMI (the company that now owns the stanley name)…and spread the word about the the poor quality thermos to our friends and neighbors.. Word of mouth still goes far… And hopefully it gets through their heads that we want a quality product made in the usa not a cheap chinese ripoff
I have (2) Stanleys, both are NO. A-944DH quart size. One is stamped with a B and a 95, the other is stamped with a A and a 01. I assume that they were made in 1995 and 2001. I haven’t used them for years because they don’t keep coffee hot anymore. I think both worked great for about 3 months when new. I just tried both again last week and noticed the outside got hot immediately when filling. These were both made in Nashville, Tennessee.
I have had 2 replaced and now the number 3 has given up. Bought German 14 years ago and continues to work great. Hot for near 24 hours.
Guess what my next purchase will be?
Hello,
I’ve got a Stanley classic stainless steel 1.1 quart thermos I bought a year or so ago. It’s worked fine until recently. The last three times I’ve used it, it’s not kept my coffee hot. This morning I put hot coffee in at 6:30am and by 9:00am it was room temperature. This has happen the last 3 times I’ve used it. At first I thought I’d left cold coffee in it when I filled it but today I put hot water in it for a while before I added coffee. What’s happen to my thermos?
Yes, the Stanley thermos is now junk. When it was made in the USA it was heavier, more insulated, and durable. I recently bought a travel size thermos and the seal was broke in a week and so was the handle due to the shotty spot weld which held together the PLASTIC handle. Complete junk! If you want decent products you have to begin by searching for the words coffee thermos made in the USA on google and then follow up by calling the company personally before making your order to make sure the product is not being DESIGNED in America but MANUFACTURED in China. Yes, its retarded, but this is where the current state of affairs lies. Do your homework before purchasing any product is my suggestion.
I too have had issues with the new bottles. The customer service at pmi is fantastic but it does appear the quality of the physical asset since about y2k has diminished. Still, I would recommend contacting pmi if the bottle is not working to specs.
Sad truth is you gotta go vintage if you want a quality thermos anymore. I have a ’78 Aladdin Stanley thermos, model A-944C. It’s what Stanley referred to as a “Sportsmaster Outing Kit” back in the day, and came with a very nice faux leather carrying case.
I put ice water into the thermos at 1:00 AM and left it on my kitchen counter. When I poured some out at 1:00 AM the next night (24 hours later), it was as cold as it would be coming straight from the refrigerator. Room temp was about 75 degrees.
The old ones are worth the money. I got mine on Ebay for about $25, which is about what the cheapo Chinese ones cost new.