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Aerodynamic, aluminum crossbars let you build an aftermarket roof rack for your vehicle. Full-length bars provide plenty of space for carriers and accessories. Vortex strips in C-channels reduce wind noise. Theft-deterring plastic locks included.
Features:
Rhino-Rack Vortex Aero Crossbars - Black - Qty 2:Videos are provided as a guide only. Refer to manufacturer installation instructions and specs for complete information.
Today, in our 2016 Honda CR-V. We're going to be doing a test fit on the Rhino-Rack Vortex Aero Crossbars Roof Rack system. This system is specifically designed to fit your flush-mounted rails on your CR-V.With it in place, you're gonna be able to carry roof mount accessories, things like bike racks, kayak carriers, cargo boxes, and much more.Now, the aerobars are 49 inches long. You can see how they span across the roof of our CR-V. This is gonna allow us to carry multiple accessories on our roof. So maybe we'd like to carry two to three bike racks up there, or maybe even two kayaks.Now, the crossbars are made out of aluminum, so we don't have to worry about any rust or corrosion.
I've got the black installed, but they're also available in silver. So if the silver is something you're interested in, see etrailer.com.Now, you'll notice that they're aerodynamic. These are gonna be a lot quieter than your traditional round or square bars. They're gonna work with your standard clamp-on accessories as well as your T-slot accessories. You'll simply remove that end cap and we can trim that rubber strip, slide that T-bolt in to our desired location, and replace it, and it's gonna give us that nice, clean look.
When it's all said and done, we can put on our end cap and we're all set.Now, the crossbars are held in place by four Rhino Rack RCL legs. These attach to the fit kit that are attached to our flush-mounted rails. With everything in place, it's a nice, tight fit. You can rest assured your accessories and your roof rack system are gonna remain in place.Now, if we remove the cover. As you can see, it's lockable.
That way no one can access it.You can see how it protects our hardware so it can't be tampered with. It's also gonna protect it from the elements. It is stainless steel hardware, so we don't need to worry about it rusting or corroding.If you'd like to take the roof rack off sometime, you have that option. You'll simply undo the bolt on the inside, replace it with the cap, put the bolt back on, and then you've got the fit kit remaining in place for when you'd like to put it back in use.Now, I mentioned the fit kit. What's unique about it is they're specifically designed to fit the flush-mounted rails on our CR-V.
You can see here how the pad is gonna contour that rail. Two bolts hold that bracket in place on the inside and it's a nice, tight fit.Here on the opposite side, you can see the two bolts. Again, it is stainless steel hardware. And since they're bolted on, it is a fixed-mounted roof rack system. We cannot adjust along our rails.With the roof rack system in place, it gives us a crossbar spread center on center of about 31 3/4 of an inch. So, when choosing accessories, you'll wanna be sure that they will work with that crossbar spread.Now, this roof rack system has a weight capacity of 165 pounds. You do, however, want to check with your CR-V's owner's manual to see if the roof can support that much weight. You'll wanna go with whatever number is lowest.Now I'll give you some clearance measurements. This is gonna be an idea of how much you've added to the roof of your CR-V and it may also help you when mounting those clamp-on accessories.Now, from the top of the roof to the underside of the bar is about 2 1/4 of an inch. From the top of the bar, excuse me, from the top of the room to the top of the bar is about 3 3/4 of an inch.Now that we've got all the features, I'll go ahead and show you how to get it set up. I've already got my front crossbar in place, mounted to my flush-mounted rails on my CR-V, as you can see. The rear one installs pretty much the same way. In fact, I've got one side of my fit kit installed. Let's do the other side together.We'll need the pad. We'll need the bracket. We'll need two allen bolts and we'll need two flat washers and two lock washers.Since we're at the table here, we can go ahead and put the pad in place. It just connects to the bracket underneath, like this. And what I like to do is I like to push it all the way on first. That way that lip ends up on top, which is what we want.And then we'll push the tabs through, just like that.So we'll be mounting the bracket right here. First, we'll need to remove the rubber covers. You can use a flathead screwdriver or your fingers, whatever works best for you.And we can either put these in our glove box or throw them away.Then we'll take the bracket and we'll set it in place.From there, we can take our allen bolt. We can put on our lock washer, and then our flat washer, and start threading that through.It's a good idea to get them both started before you tighten them down. We'll take our included tool and get those tight.Now, there's no reason to over tighten here. Just tighten them up to where that lock washer flattens out.Now, back here at the table, we need to install the RCL leg onto our crossbar. First, let's remove the end cap. We'll set that aside. And we'll need to make sure that this T-bolt is loose. So, you can loosen that up with the allen bolt on the bottom. I think we've got it pretty loose here.We'll also need to rotate it to where the long side is horizontal with the leg.From there, we're ready to slide it onto our crossbar. I'll turn it over, just so we can easily see what we're working with.Now, if you haven't removed the end cap, just go ahead and do that. Take our included key. Then we'll take that leg, and we're gonna slide it on. So, I like to put pressure on the bolt on bottom to push it out, and we'll slide it into that channel.Just like that. From here, we'll take our included tool. We don't wanna tighten this down all the way just yet, but I'm taking out all that slack. That way we've got a little bit of resistance when we push it. This is gonna help us set it up on the roof of our CR-V. So, don't tighten it all the way. Just get it loosely installed.Then we can replace our end cap and lock that up.From here, we'll wanna test fit it to our roof. That way we can get our bar overhand set.Now, when you rest it in place, you want the legs to sit directly on top of the brackets. So we want it to fit down into the slots on each side.And then, before we tighten anything down, we wanna adjust our bar overhang. So we want the same difference from the underside here to the outside of the crossbar. Now, you can either use a tape measure or you can eye it up, whichever'd be easiest.And since we left those legs loose on our crossbar, we can slide that to the left or to the right and make sure it's right.Once we've got it set, then we can take it back off and tighten them up. So we'll take our included tool and just tighten these up, being careful not to move them, since they're already set.Again, no reason to over tighten. Just flatten out that lock washer. Now we'll set it back in place on the roof of our CR-V, make sure it's right, and then we'll fasten everything down.Looks like it fits good. With everything set, we can then take our bolt, take a lock washer, and then a flat washer, and we're going to hand tighten into the hole on top of the leg here.Now we'll leave it loosely installed. Let's get both side set up first.Then we can take a 10 millimeter wrench and tighten up the bolt. Now this you'll have to provide yourself.Again, no reason to over tighten. Just tighten it up to where that lock washer flattens out. And we'll do this for both sides.Last thing to do is to put on our covers.Once everything's assembled and installed correctly, we're ready to load up our favorite roof mount accessory and hit the road. But that's gonna complete our test fit of the Rhino-Rack Vortex Aero Crossbar Roof Rack system on our 2016 Honda CR-V.
Average Customer Rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars (160 Customer Reviews)
Aerodynamic, aluminum crossbars let you build an aftermarket roof rack for your vehicle. Full-length bars provide plenty of space for carriers and accessories. Vortex strips in C-channels reduce wind noise. Theft-deterring plastic locks included.Indeed they were the wrong parts in the box marked demo on them.
The new parts came and I was able to
Put it on my car with no problem!!
Thank you for listening to me and helping me problem solve. It looks great on my car and I'm ready to load the kayaks now!!
Kalie is a gal that sent me some return labels so I'm going to put that on the box and send it back to you guys!
Great bars. It's my second pair. Both on jeep Grand cherokee. The pair I put on my 2015 overland didn't whistle at all. This pair I put on my 2020 trailhawk whistled starting at 20mph and changed pitch throughout the acceleration process and while causing. I bought a fairing and the problem is solved. At least for now. I put the fairing on wit the label in. Looks better and Rhino Rack isn't paying me to advertise. The fairing they recommended seemed small but works so go with whatever they recommend.
etrailer.com's videos and additional customer support made the purchase of a Rhino Rack system from them for our 2010 Malibu a no brainer. The rack fit the car perfectly, and with the videos and clear instructions that came with the kit, I got it installed on the car with only one misstep. The instructions came the the measurements in centimeters and inches. I didn't have a metric tape measure, and ended up messing up converting fractions to decimal.
My Daughter is going to college 500 miles away and is moving into an unfurnished apartment and needed to pick up some small furniture that wouldn't fit in her Malibu. She purchased several items from Facebook Marketplace and was able to transport a twin bed and mattress, a medium sized desk and some dining room chairs (in several trips) with no problems.
The only thing I can think of to improve the installation would be to have the Inches measurements in decimal or to include an inexpensive metric tape.
Rhino-Rack installed on my 2022 Jeep Cherokee. There was wind noise (whistling) when all the rubber spacers were not installed, now it’s very quiet. I also installed the Yakima fishing rod//Ski holder. I wound up deviating from the directions and using the third lot, so the clamps would close on the bar. So far so good, without the fishing rod holder it’s low profile enough to get into garages, etc. Fast delivery on the products.
I love it works amazing on my 2017 Hyundai sonata sport 2.0T
Great sturdy rack. I put it together myself and have already started using it. I was concerned that it would cause leaks in the door the way it has to mount..but its Florida and its rainfall in the past few days and no leak! The weak link would be the end caps..two do not lock on and im concerned the will fly off at some point.
You have to order the cross bars and connector hardware separately. I also ordered the end cap locks.
I consider myself a pretty good DYI person and it took longer than I expected according to other reviews on here to get everything installed and overlapping the same on both sides.
Once installed the crossbars are very solid. I do get noticeable wind noise at say 70+MPH.
I installed these on a 2020 Jeep GC Overland and they look and function great! Was a bit concerned about the sun roof retraction with the bars, but there is plenty of clearance. No issue.
I for sure recommend the Rhino Rail crossbars. Etrailer is a great site to get the bars. Given the COVID issues and supply chain breakdowns retailers are facing, they still had everything I ordered to me in a very reasonable time frame.
I bought the complete set (mounting points, mounts and aero cross bars) looking for a less expensive approach for a rack to carry my sea kayak. The equipment shipped quickly from or via etrailer. The instructions that came with the whole kit leave a little bit to be desired and a little bit of mechanical interpretation is needed to figure out what parts you need and which you don't. The whole set went together relatively easily in an hour or so. I remove the bars, mounts and mounting points when not in use which is a bit time consuming and fiddly. I had to replace the mazda 3's roof moulding which was continuous with one that had the necessary pop out pieces to accept the rack but this was not costly nor a big job. Overall, I am pleased with the rhino rack and it looks just fine. The one area it could be improved is wind noise - at some speeds there can be quite a heavy drone either off the bars or mounts. The bars do have rubber inserts to smooth out the surface across the width of the car. I suspect it might be the mounts which have the inboard side of them completely open so the air flowing along the car goes over this open space like you would have happen when you blow across the top of a bottle. I am going to try to cover the sides with gorilla tape to see if this makes a difference. Apart from that, I am quite happy with the etrailer ordering, delivery and the Rhino rack in general.
I bought this rack for my son who is a rower so he could take his single shell and oars to regattas using his new Chevy Cruz. First trip from Wyandotte, Michigan to Boston, Massachusetts and back was great. A learning curve to get in the right spot on roof but very sturdy & strong. He is looking forward to many regattas with this car and roof rack. Very Satisfied with etrailer and the rack itself and thank you for the quick shipping.
These crossbars were easy to install, are sturdy when installed and look great on my factory side rails when installed with the SX Series legs. The standard end caps are an all-plastic affair and use a little key to engage a cam lock. That plus the distance from the end of the crossbar to the nut that tightens the foot onto the rail keeps things relatively secure. Most people probably want to opt for proper locking end caps, though.
The rubber vortex strips look nice and give items something grippy to rest on. I haven't tried a load test yet but did drive around in moderate wind on the highway in multiple directions. Other than a slight whistle at 70 mph, you'd never know they were there. Overall, real happy with the product and looking forward to hauling some stuff around with them.
Easy to install. The pins on the legs clamp perfectly into the fixed points on the car's flush rails. This is a nice low profile set up. The top of the crossbar is about 4" above the roof glass and does not interfere with opening the sunroof. This is a very sturdy setup for our Thule Motion XT XL. etrailer shipped extremely fast. Very pleased with my purchase.
My inital thought of these crossbars were that they were going to be too small. Two of the other big makers call for 53" min and 60" recommended. However after installing, 49" is a perfect fit for the Cayenne I feel. The rack is extremely quiet (make sure you use the channel rubber on top and bottom) The Cayenne is fairly quiet car inside and it was one of my big concerns but I only hear what sounds like a slight rush of air, no buzzing or whistling at all.
The downside to this rack is I think the black paint is too thin. Just laying it on the pavement while setting up caused scratches to appear. Silver would be the way to go if your getting these, or spray them plastic.
My Rhino-Rack Aero 2500 roof racks fit solidly on my 2007 Honda Civic EX. I was really impressed with the construction and strength of the rack system. Also the versatility of the 'legs' with a swivel pad allow them to fit any roof pitch perfectly. The clamps are so solid, nothing could knock these racks off. I added a paddleboard attachment and went surfing today. The black racks also look great with the black trim on my silver Honda. Great product at a much better price than Yakima or Thule.
Love these aero bars. Perfect for on my 2018 Grand Cherokee Trailhawk. Run fairly quiet and perform as expected. As always the customer service from etrailer was top notch.
Received the roof rack on the date promised, it was well packaged and all parts required were included. Everything fit together very well and the instructions were easy to follow. The rack looks good on the car. Once the rack is installed and the included decals in place it only takes a few minutes to remove it and reinstall. This is important for me because we will only use the racks to transport our kayaks the rest of the time they will be removed and stored.
There are two small items that can be improved. First the legs are different lengths yet nowhere in the instructions does it tell you where each size goes. Second I own 10 tape measure and not one of them is in meters and I do not care how good your eyesight is you are not going to be able to measure to 53/64". If the measurements are critical you should ensure customers in the US have measurements they can use or include a MM tape measure.
Overall this is a very good product that I would purchase again and recommend to friends.
Used the cross bars once with a kayak. Black paint easily scratched showing the metal underneath. Was told this was normal wear and tear. The product was bought less than a week ago. Would not buy again.
The only complaint I have about the crossbars is that it causes a high pitch sound. I've been meaning to contact you about a possible solution. Pls advise.
Other than that they are just fine.
Easy to read instructions, easy to install. Watched the install video a few times just to be sure! They do whistle a bit at highway speeds, but certainly not unbearable. In fact, I was surprised as to how quiet they are. It's to be expected, especially when paired with kayak j-racks. So happy with this purchase and I would definitely recommend them!
These are cross bars ONLY and are useless without other hardware. This could be presented in a more clear way. I will be returning and buying a complete cross bar set elsewhere
I spent a week reading reviews and forums to find the right one for my 2019 Jeep Cherokee that I just bought a few weeks ago. I just have to overthink everything but it paid off. I just received them this morning and installed them myself! First time for everything! It was really easy. The only part that was frustrating was the very first part... sliding the rubber pieces into the crossbars. They would not slide very well so I ended up using a bit of oil to make them slide better. Other than that, installation was easy and quick. I LOVE the looks of them. Very gorgeous!!! Thank you so much!! Very happy with the end result!!
The quality is very good. Ordering was easy and installation using the video made the process so simple. Glad I order them from here instead of somewhere else.
Looks a great and we’re super easy to install.
2021 Jeep Grand Cherokee L 4x4 Limited
I haven't extensively used this rack yet, but so far, it is excellent.
Avoid my mistake and buy this rack first... Last summer, I purchased a much cheaper off-brand roof rack that was supposed to fit my car. I figured the off-brand rack couldn't be that different from the more common brands, such as Rhino Rack. Long story short, I was wildly wrong. It was nearly impossible to install, and once installed, I didn't trust it with my wind surfboard on it. This rack, however, was easy to assemble and install and is rock solid. I have zero fear of my board or the rack leaving the party before we get there.
The bars look and feel great. They have such a tough presence while still being aerodynamic. I love the look of the rubber grip strip on top and I like how the rubber strip on the bottom ends have graduations so you can easily match the overhang with the other side. They feel incredible strong, no bend in the them at all. If the platforms were a bit more robust this thing would outshine all the competition. However, it competes with every other system at a much lower price point so that gets 5 stars in my book.
The bars themselves look great and seem strong enough for anything I’ll throw at them. However, I have an issue with eTrailer.com. In the detailed product description on their website, eTrailer indicates that three 15” Vortex rubber strips are included in every individual bar. However, when the bars arrived, each contained only two 15” Vortex rubber strips. This isn’t nearly enough to fill the ~48” of open c-channel and doesn’t match the product description and pictures. The boxes look like they had been opened too. When I called customer support, they said that the bars should only contain two strips each. According to them, the manufacturer only included two strips to leave room for attaching bike racks and other gear. But this directly contradicts the manufacturer’s product description. Also, even with three strips, there would be room for attachments. I suspect that eTrailer may be opening boxes and removing strips to drum up aftermarket sales for extra strips. I recommend the product but buy elsewhere.
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