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What to look for when you purchase a rooftop carrier. Also called car top carriers.

Here are the important things to consider when choosing a rooftop carrier. 1. Material 2. How it closes 3. Volume or capacity 4. How it attaches to your car.

1. Material.  The biggest item determining the price of most cartop carriers is the material.  The better the material the higher the price.  Cheap CTCs are made of thin material. You can usually tell a cheap car top carrier if it weights less than 3 lbs.  The wind force on the top of the car will eventually wear down inexpensive material and it will rip and leak.  Cheap layered material may separate.  One carrier I used had all the inner vinyl separate off in little pieces.  My gear was soaked and covered with little plastic crud.  Another guy I know bought a cheap bag, water got in, soaked his wife's new cloths.  The fabric dye ran all over and ruined her cloths. He bought a new second carrier and all new cloths for his wife while on vacation.  Ouch!  Some savings huh?  Cotton bags generally won't hold up, Nylon bags fade and deteriorate in the sun (UV damage).  Thick polyester materials generally make up the best car top carriers. Some good quality CTC bags even use polyester with a vinyl backing that is even better.

2.  Most Car Top Carriers close with a zipper around the top.  Generally the zipper is under a flap.  Don't be fooled, this won't keep the water out.  While driving in the rain, water hits the side of the carrier and is pushed up under the flap and through the zipper.  70 mph wind and rain against your CTC is similar to hurricane force.  Again, cheep bags won't cut it. Also many inexpensive CTC bags use zippers that snag, or are too small to hold the load.  Look for big thick zippers, zippers that are sealed, not just under a flap, and urethane coated zippers.  Coated zippers do a great job keeping most not all of the water out.  ZipRight is a patented zipper technique that puts the zipper in the flap not under the flap.  This keeps 95% of the water our.  Some carriers don't use a zipper at all.  They fold and bend the opening to close it like a white water rafting bag or 'dry bag'.  These bags are a bit harder to close than using a zipper, but it is very effective at keeping water out, it allows you to adjust the size of the bag and you will never have a zipper that snags your gear or breaks.

3.  CarTop Carriers come in all shapes & sizes. Try to determine the size of your load in cubic feet or inches.  Put your bags together in a pile. A 2 foot by 5 foot area on the ground (one foot high) is 10 square feet.  The same size 2' x 5' by 2 feet high is 20 cubic feet. (by the way 12 inches x 12 inches x 12 inches is 1728 cubic inches = 1 cubic foot).  Rarely are CTC so simply laid out.  Before you buy look at the CTC's size and the size of your load.  Also look at the biggest item you'll want to carry, measure it and see if it will fit the dimensions of the carrier you want to buy.  Be aware of weight as well.  Your luggage rack or car roof will only support so much weight.  The bigger the CTC, generally the more weight it will handle.  Make sure your luggage rack can handle it.  It's dangerous to not pay attention to weight.

4.How will the carrier attach to your car?  It's easiest to attach a CTC to a factory installed luggage rack.  Most CTCs have straps that require raised roof bars, or luggage rack so the strap can go around the bar.  Good CTCs will work with either side bars or forward and aft bars, cheap bags will require four bar roof racks (four bars, one each, front and back, and one on each side).  CTC can easily mount in a basket that is attached to roof bars.  If you have no luggage rack or bars, good carriers will allow you to use car clips or gutter hooks.  These are a bit trickier to use.  The hooks go on the straps and hook on to a ledge on your car, generally located inside the door along the roof line.  Most but not all cars have this ledge for car clips.  With the straps and clips in place, tension pulls the bag against the roof and pulls the clips up in place.  Car doors shut over the clips.  Be very careful and test this set up before you hit the road.  This system works, thousands use it every day, some people don't get it and your gear can go flying off the car.  When using this system be extra careful with van doors that roll shut. Car clips can NOT interfere with and door mechanism.  Finally some carriers have straps (StrapRight) that you can connect together, run them through the inside of the car and over the CTC and literally tie the bag to the roof of the car.  This works great with the same caveat as the car clips.  Some times straps used like this will bend the weather molding in so it make leak when it rains, but you can easily fix this by stuffing something in the crack.

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