Ozark Trail Two Burner Propane Camp Stove

Unreliable

We used this stove on 1-2 weekend camping trips. It might have been fired up five times during those trips. It's basically brand new, even though it's 3-4 years old. Last month I took it on a longer, five-day canoe trip, and that turned out to be a terrible mistake.    

The first night on the river it worked fine. When we finished dinner,  I unscrewed the propane tank, closed the lid, stored the regulator in the back of the stove. The next morning it won't fire up at all—the regulator won't open the propane tank valve. Using my camping utility tool, I was able to unscrew the brass fitting on the regulator but don't find any obvious issue—the little pin inside the regulator just seemed to be too short to properly open the value when the tank was screwed onto the regulator.

As a workaround I put a small pebble on top of the pin inside the regulator and carefully reassembled the fitting; the pebble forced the value to stay open and allowed gas to flow to the burners.However, moving the stove to the next campsite caused the pebble to slip off the pin.I had to repeat the process every time we wanted to use the stove, and after three or four times repeating that process I was ready to throw the stove into the river :-) 

Fortunately I'd brought along a small backpack stove. By the third day of our trip we just used it instead, and made no attempt to resurrect the Ozark 2-burner. 

I liked the stove itself. It folds up nicely, you can store the regulator and grill in the back of the stove, and when it works the large burners produce good heat. However, I'm not going to spend $20 on a replacement regulator, when the first one worked maybe five times before malfunctioning. 

Background

I've been camping regularly for decades. I own a Coleman 2-burner and multiple backpack stoves, both white gas and butane/propane varieties. The Ozark 2-burner was used once or twice during summer months in Upstate New York, one in a park near Austin, Texas, and finally during Oct 2018 on the Buffalo River in Arkansas, where it failed miserably.

If you break or lose any parts good luck finding a direct number to order a new one. I have googled search for hours. Found a manual with no part numbers. I have found 800 numbers that are not even to the manufacturer, instead it's Walmart.

I purchased this product new at WalMart June 16, 2010. Went camping for Father's Day and the stove did not work. Nothing I did would make this stove work. I'm stubborn and the 2nd day I was able to get a pot of coffee made but once I turned the stove off, it would not restart.

My instruction book does have a toll free help desk phone number (1-800-762-1142 or BlueRhino.com) and they are sending out a new regulator. I will keep you advised.

We used the Ozark Trail camp stove we purchased at Walmart a total of 4 times. It is in like-new condition and the regulator broke apart. After reading others' experiences we will not try to replace the part as it seems futile. We will purchase a Coleman.

AVOID this product. Sounds like a class action lawsuit!