Roof racks a love hate thing for me. I Installed a Thule MOAB on our Tuscan. Wind noise has gone up just a hair... but with the average factory stereo, it will easily overpower the little noise it adds. IT does make the car top heavy. But for a family in a entry level SUV, it makes camping ALOT EASIER, and for the average family camper I think they are perfect. For fathers day I was able to place 6 Wiggys bags, 1 sping bar family camper 7 tent (poles and stakes were in the vehicle, it was just the canvas up there... the middle greenish bag in the photos below), 3 camp matress, Coleman 2 burner stove, A Coleman 8-D cell and a northstar propane lanterns, 30" bowsaw, A handpump for the mataress, Spring bar footprint ground cloth canvas thing, a pair of welcome mats to "wipe yer feet" before getting in the tent, GSI Basecamper large cookware set with GSI 10" skillet, 14cup perculator, and a few other little things all up in the MOAB. I had to weigh each bag prior to loading. The factory bars are rated to 165lbs. The rack weights 28, I had 152 lbs including the rack and hardware up there prior to heading out.

But having this stuff up there made for a deal of room in the vehicle for a 5gallon bucket for girl potty time, the cooler, 2 5gallon USGI water cans, food, and other things the girls brought. Without this rack I would have had to follow in my car.

The hate part.... When on, even when empty, you lose 2-3 MPG. When it rains, you better have planned waterproofing before. If it is raining and you have to pack you are screwed... had to load as much into the car as I could, drive home, off load the family, off load the equipment into the garage, drive back up there, tear down the rest of camp and head home... WET. Fathers day camp out was cut short almost 24 hours due to a down pour. After the first 5 hours, the girls wanted out of the wilderness. Hence I found out how bad this sucks to do when raining cats and dogs.

If going the route of a rack, I recommend the elastic spider web net retianer deal. Plus a few packs of bungees from Walmart. Also be sure to get the locks for the basket and bars if needed. Overall I like the rack. More so that Backcountry.com had it for $150 less than anywhere I could find... PLUS they shipped from the warehouse to their store for free, then let me pick it up, they have a customer for life. Due to the size of the box, UPS wanted a $99 freight charge for resident delivery.

I am about to pick up a FJ and will be equipping it with a bajarack that is rated to 300 lbs for SHTF, roof tent possibilites, and just because. The rack for the FJ rack is reviewed here: http://www.fjcruiserforums.com/forums/ba...ack-review.html

As for our current...


and loaded pretty well.