Hot take: the $180 plastic resin cabinet I bought 8 months ago is still bone dry inside
I went back and forth for weeks on this thing. Almost bought a metal one for $340 because everyone online swears plastic warps and cracks in the sun. Cheaped out and grabbed the resin one at the hardware store on 5th for $180 instead. Eight months in, two Ohio winters, and everything inside is still dry. Lawn mower bag, bags of potting soil, the hose reel, all of it. My brother in law spent $600 on a cedar unit two summers back and his doors already swelled up so bad they scrape the frame. I checked mine this morning after that rain we got Friday and not one drop got in. The latch is a little sticky when it freezes but that is it. Anyone else go cheap on resin and actually have it hold up, or did mine just get lucky with where I put it?
Man, my buddy Dave did the exact opposite and it bit him. He dropped almost $400 on a fancy metal one from one of those big box stores, felt real proud of it too. Two summers later the paint peeled off the top and rust ate a hole right through the lid. His wife's garden gloves got soaked every time it rained and she finally made him drag the whole thing to the curb. Sounds like you made the smarter call, plastic or not.