Roof Racks, Luggage Racks and Rooftop Cargo Racks
The need for carrying your luggage, sporting equipment, ladders, lumber and other cargo on the top of your truck, SUV, car or van is important. We all need additional space to carry our extra cargo and bulky items and a Roof Mounted Luggage Rack fills that need. Before you purchase a Roof Rack, you will need to determine if your vehicle already has anything installed on the roof.
Anatomy of a Roof Rack
In order to carry anything on your Roof Rack, the cargo load must be supported by cross rail members, commonly known as Cross Bars. Cross Bars stretch across the width of your vehicle (side-to-side) and can be moved closer or farther apart to accomodate the size of the equipment you are carrying,. The Cross Bars are held in place by either Raised Side Rails or mounted into Tracks that run along the length of your rooftop (front-to-rear). This setup of 2 Cross Bars and 2 Side Rails (or Side Tracks) is known as a Complete Roof Rack.
Cross Bars for Factory Installed Roof Racks
Roof Racks may or may not come already Factory-installed on your vehicle. Sometimes the factory provides a partial roof rack by installing only Side Rails that run front-to-back along your roof, which only use at this point is for aesthetics. Similarly, the factory may only supply tracks on the sides of your rooftop. In order to make a partial roof rack functional, you will need to purchase Roof Rack Cross Bars that will attach to the factory-installed Side Rails or Tracks. We supply SportQuest and Mont Blanc Cross Bars to fit most factory-installed racks. Our Cross Bars come with mounting hardware that will grip onto factory Raised Side Rails or hardware that mounts into factory-installed side tracks. The cross rails or cross bars come in standard and larger sizes to accomodate wider loads and have a load rating of 180 lbs up to 220 lbs.
Upgrading the Load Capacity of your Current Roof Rack
If you already have a complete Roof Rack with side rails or side tracks and have oval shaped aerodynamic cross rails or crossbars, chances are your load capacity does not exceed 75-100 lbs. If you need to carry heavier cargo on your rack, we can provide you with Cross Bars that will upgrade your load capacity to 180 lbs or 220 lbs. Our SportQuest Upgrade Cross Bars and Mont Blanc Upgrade Cross Bars will replace your current cross bars and come with mounting hardware that will grip onto factory Raised Side Rails or hardware that mounts into factory-installed side tracks. The cross rails or cross bars come in standard and larger sizes to accomodate wider loads.
Complete Roof Rack Systems for Vehicles that do not have an installed Roof Rack
If you do not have any type of Roof Rack installed on your vehicle, then we can provide you with a Complete Roof Rack System that includes 2 side rails and 2 cross bars. You can choose general purpose factory-looking Roof Racks like our DynaSport and SporTrek roof racks that have a load capacity of 75 lbs. You can also choose our factory style Aventura roof rack that carries up to 110 lbs. We also provide heavy duty roof racks when you need to carry heavier sporting or construction equipment. Our SportQuest Roof Rack has a load capacity or 180 lbs. Our Mont Blanc Cross Bars can be combined with our DynaSport or Aventura Side Rails for a complete roof rack that can carry 220 lbs. If you have a truck and need a tonneau cover rack or shell top rack, you can install our SportQuest Roof Racks or any of our other Complete Roof Rack systems and will need to purchase a separate mounting kit for fiberglass installations.