Rooftop Cargo Carrier

[Shira]

Hi.

I'm looking for a hardtop cargo carrier to go on my 2001 RX300. I have looked at Thule and Yakama and they both say that you have to buy all these extras even for my factory mounted roof rack.

Does anyone have any suggestions or personal experience using roodtop racks?

Thanks much,

~ Shira

Life is short. Play hard!!!!

[cagleman]

I have the Thule racks and one of their hardtop carriers. They are relatively expensive. I think I paid a couple hundred for the rack (the bars and the feet that attach to the vehicle) and about $300 for the hardtop carrier. That being said...they are wonderfully useful and can hold quite a bit of stuff. Once you make the initial investment for the rack...most of the other accessories aren't outrageously priced.

[CatKing]

hi,

if cargo carrier is the only stuff you are going to put on the roof, you just have to buy their adaptor in order to install on the factory rack otherwise you have to invest some money on their roof rack as cagleman said and you can put any of their product as you wish.

[tds]

Remember that any time you are carrying a load on the roof of your RX300 you are increasing the likelyhood of a roll over. How much of an increase depends on the load you are carrying and the distance of the center of gravity of the load from the center of gravity of the vehicle.

If you check this link:

http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/NCAP/Cars/2001SUVs.html

you will see that the RX300 gets 3 stars out a a maximum 5 (more is better). You will be reducing the RX300 to 2 stars or maybe even 1 star. I recommend that you don't carry anything on the roof (i.e. safety over convenience)