Road Trip Cargo Carrier
We are road tripping to the Grand Canyon over spring break. I have high hopes that our new roof mounted cargo carrier will help make this a more fun experience for our family of 5.
The drive is over 2000 miles and at least 35 hours in the car. I have a good-sized SUV, but thought that the kids would be more comfortable, and we’d all have more fun, if they had a bit more space. Instead of putting our luggage in the trunk and having all three kids in the back seat, we decided let the kids spread out in the middle and 3rd row seats, and move much of our gear to a roof mounted cargo carrier.
Although we haven’t taken the trip yet, I thought I’d share some of what we learned (and some of the gotchyas) so far.
First, there are three parts to a roof carrier system. The roof rails go front-to-back across the roof of the car. These are or become part of the car, so chances are you need to get this from your car manufacturer. My SUV didn’t come with roof rails standard, so we had to add these. Second, you need to have crossbars that mount to the roof rails and go left-go-right across the roof. This is where you mount things, like the cargo box to. You can get the cross bars from your car manufacturer, from the company that makes your cargo box, or a 3rd party. It doesn’t really matter whose you get, because the cargo boxes all have universal attachment points. One thing I like about the cross bars that we got is that they are very easily removed (some are not), so that they are only on my car when we need them. The last piece of the system is the cargo box itself.
I was shocked at how many different features a simple cargo box would have. Size, looks, locks, opening mechanism, material, weight capacity, etc. etc. etc. We decided there were a couple of important features for us: the cargo box had to lock, and had to be openable from either the driver side or passenger side of the vehicle. After that, they are essentially just big plastic bins. One thing to keep in mind is that most of the budget ones are rated at just 100 lbs of total weight (no matter how big they are), and that really isn’t a lot. We had to look around to find one with thicker and heavier plastic that that can hold more weight.
When we mounted the cargo box for the first time, we learned there were two other VERY important things to look for. Our SUV is tall, and with the cross bar height and cargo box height, we only had about 2” of clearance getting in and out of the garage! Make sure you don’t paint yourself into a corner and get something that ends up being too tall to get your car in and out! Second, my car has the satellite radio antenna mounted on the tail side of the roof. We had sized the carrier so that the tailgate would open, but had to reposition the carrier more forward on the car so that it wouldn’t cover the satellite radio. Our roof is big enough to handle the move, but it is something to look for.
We can’t wait for an awesome and comfortable trip!
