What do you like/dislike about your roof rack?
 

I'm in the process of designing and building my own roof rack. There are obvious differences between a Gobi style tube rack, a Front Runner platform style rack, or something like the Prinsu in between.

What rack do you have? And what do you like about it? What do you wish was different?

I prefer the tube style roof racks. I designed and built my own also. Its exactly what I wanted.
https://i.imgur.com/96SIQeE.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/mcyDpfs.jpg

More pics in my build thread if you are interested. Good luck!

I have an Eezi-Awn 2.2m full aluminum rack. I use it mostly not to have fuel can inside the truck on long trails. It is convenient, versatile, light, and not too noisy. On the negative side, there is some impact on fuel consumption.

The only thing I would change is get the shorter 40mm legs instead of the 60mm I end-up. The installer said that the shark fin antenna make it impossible to use 40mm but by looking at the installed rack, there is plenty of space. I don't mind Sirius XM reception since I am not using it.

I saw that RCI now has a similar rack. If they offered it at the time I purchase the EEzi-Awn, things might have been different.

Have Sherpa Crestone. To date i like it alot. Very functional with add on areas with T bars. Side grip bars are nice and sturdy. Have light bar on it. Really nothing I dont like about it.

Someday I am going to build a Gobi style rack out of aluminum. I like the tube style and feel the rack design and mounting options are much more robust for carrying heavy loads than the extruded rail racks. I like my Gobi (stealth no-rise) except for a few things.

1. Wish it was aluminum to cut down on some weight
2. Wish it was aluminum to eliminate the rusting where the coating gets chipped or rubbed through.
3. Wish they would have done a better job cleaning out the tubing before welding it up solid. There are pieces of weld slag inside the tubing I can hear roll around when cornering with the windows down or sunroof open.

I have the Sherpa Crestone on my rig. I adapted the Scepter fuel can holder from Baja Rack so I get my gas up there, secured in place, when taking longer offroad jaunts. I'm using Sherpa's hi-lift mount and I have a few of their adapt plates to allow for all sorts of flexibility for holding and lashing stuff down.

I love the modularity and flexibility of the rack. You can slide/add/remove crossbars as needed to fit your loads. I'm getting their little Baja Design rock light mounts that go into some of the handles on the side rails so that will provide a super clean solution for camp lights too without a bunch of crap looking like it's hanging off the side of the thing.

Overall I'm super pleased with the design and construction of it. I've also dealt with their customer service dept a few times to ask questions, order components etc. and they've been hyper responsive. Shipping times were as quoted, even though I ordered during their Black Friday sale last year.

I Like the look of the ones with the flat sides, like pictured above. But I really enjoy the strength of the Gobi on my r4unner. I'm 260lbs and can walk around on my roof without it even flexing. It seems to be very well built, which is what matters the most to me. I also really enjoy that it has a strong mesh floor across the entire rack.

I have the yakima mega warrior and wish it was more low profile. I didn't consider that it would be cutting it so close with standard garage doors. I also wish it had some sort of barrier on the backend to prevent slimmer things from sliding out of the very back. Beyond that, it works just fine.

I've had both an ARB and a Gobi no rise. I prefer the sided racks generally. I tend to load at lot on my roof so that style works well for me.

The one thing most notably was the floor on the ARB. The ARB that I had some years ago had a different style floor than the expanded steel that both ARB and Gobi seem to use now. It was a cross hatch of thin steel rod (Maybe 11 gauge) welded together about 2" apart. This was easier to strap things down to because you could just hook a compression strap to it or run the strap through it to your next item.

The hooks that Gobi provides as a solution aren't great and they're expensive like all their stuff. And also, on the Gobi, if you crank down the compression strap it'll bend the expanded metal and pop the powder coat off and as well off their hook. Never had that issue with the ARB so I'm thinking that floor was stronger.



I attached an image I found that shows the ARB floor. It's kind blurry but I think you can see what I mean.


Other than that I'm of the opinion that as low as possible to still do the job is best. I felt the ARB sides were too tall and it stood very high off the roof. I think when I went from ARB to Gobi I lowered my vehicle height by 3".


Last, I'd figure on removing the shark fin. If you don't you either have to mount the rack on taller legs or some other workaround. I'm not fond of Gobi's solution, on that rack you loose 5" of storage space to accommodate the shark fin.

I have a Prinsu - it's a badass rack but it's a bit noisy (wind), cross braces bend a little bit, etc. If you could solve the noise a bit, that could be a winner! but good luck.. haha Aerodynamic and roof rack are typically not in the same sentence. lol

Do all racks rattle (even when empty)?


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Mine has zero rattles ever.

Zero rattle or even wind noise with my Gobi.

This is EXTREMELY close to the design I have been working on in my head. I also love that look. I modified an image of a 4Runner with the new TRDP roof rack on it and just extended the front of the rack to meet the front of the cab like yours. I decided I didn't like the double row of tubes so I was going to delete the top row and enlarge the remaining tube a bit. I think the result would be almost exactly what you built!

Well I like the looks of factory TRD Pro rack. I really don’t see a need for a larger rack.