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This Thule roof rack lets you carry cargo and gear on your vehicle. Aerodynamic crossbars with split rubber strips in top channels work with channel-mount and clamp-on accessories. Installs to fixed mounting points on your vehicle's roof.
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Videos are provided as a guide only. Refer to manufacturer installation instructions and specs for complete information.
Hey everybody, how's it going Today, we're gonna be going over, and showing you how to install, the Thuli Evo Crossbars System, here on our 2021 Jeep Grand Cherokee. So, let's take a closer look at our roof rack system here. The first thing we're gonna notice, is the shape of our crossbars. So, there's a few different types of Aero crossbars on the market, Thule however, are the only ones with this airplane wing shaped crossbar. Now, what this does is, it does a couple of different things. Number one, provides the best aerodynamics, therefore we're gonna get the best, or the least amount of wind resistance.
You're not gonna have to worry about as much wind noise. And number two, because of the wind resistance, we're gonna have the best miles per gallon saving. Some crossbar systems, When you add the bulky square crossbars, they're gonna catch a lot of wind, therefore creating drag and reducing your miles per gallon. So, if you have a panoramic roof on your Grand Cherokee, it's a great feature, and we don't wanna lose it with a roof rack installed. Therefore it's important that it still works with the system in place.
And, as you can see here, there are no interference issues whatsoever. So, going further into the crossbars, we're gonna have an end cap on each side, which we can flip up. And this is gonna reveal the start, or the end rather, of the integrated channels in the top of the crossbar. So, depending on what type of accessories you're using, some of them use wraparound clamps, where they attached to the bottom of the crossbar and set on top, or so of them actually use a T-bolt, and they just simply slide into the track. So, if you have those T-bolt mounted accessories, we could easily use them with this crossbar system on this vehicle.
For some vehicles, where there's not a lot of space between the top of the roof and the bottom of the crossbars, those T-bolts are a must. Therefore, it's nice to be able to utilize them here with these Thule crossbars. So, right now our system that we currently have installed, has the black crossbars, which I think looks really well here on our Grand Cherokee. However, there is still an option for silver bars as well. So either one you prefer, whichever is gonna match your vehicle better, is what I recommend.
I'd also like to point out that our crossbars here are gonna be 53 inches long, which is the recommended size for this vehicle. So touching a bit more on that recommended bar size of 53 inches, this is really a great length for this vehicle here, because it provides us with the necessary overhang that certain crossbar accessories require, and it's also gonna allow us to fit as much stuff as we can on the roof here. We did fit several bikes up here, a cargo box, and a couple bikes, a couple of kayaks. Really the possibilities are endless with this bar size here. We shouldn't have any issues running out of room. So, another feature of this crossbar system that I really like, is that it can be locked with additional metal locking cores, purchased separately. We'd simply remove these black plastic plugs here, and insert our metal locking core, offer security for our roof rack and accessories. So, we talked about all the various things we can throw up on our roof here. There is one stipulation, however, we need to be aware of. And that's gonna be the weight capacity of our system here, which is 165 pounds evenly distributed across both crossbars. However, that may not seem like a lot, but I don't think you're gonna be maxing that out with the space we have available here. That's gonna be plenty for you to carry your favorite accessories. So in regards to installation, this is very simple. All the tools we need are gonna be included with our kit, and it's gonna mount into a factory fixed point on the vehicle here. And the great thing is, we actually have a couple of different to choose from, depending on what accessories we're carrying, But, as you can see, there's actually minimal contact. So, there's really no chance at all to cause any damage to the roof of our vehicle. So, a roof rack is gonna be composed of three separate components. We have the crossbar, which is what we have here. We have the mounting feet, which is what you see right here. And then finally, we have the fit kit. So both the crossbars and the mounting feet are sort of universal, if you will. The fit kit is gonna be the component that's gonna be specific to your Grand Cherokee. So, now that we have all of our components ready and laid out in front of us, we can begin assembly. First thing we're gonna do, is we're gonna flip our crossbar over. Just one little note I wanna make at this time, before we start, is that our crossbar is sort of shaped like an airplane wing. The larger round portion needs to be facing the front of the vehicle. So, keep that in mind during assembly. Where we're gonna flip the crossbar over, and on each end we have an end cap we have to remove. If we simply depressed that section there, we should be able to pull it straight out. We have one on each side. We also have a little adjuster here. You just wanna make sure that's all the way in. Next, we're gonna take one of our mounting feet here. So, that's what this part looks like. And we're gonna go ahead and slide that into the channels in our crossbar. So, we want sort of this unfinished side to be facing out, like so. We'll slide it in about halfway, and we'll do that same thing on the other side with our other mounting foot. Once we have both of our mounting feet installed, we can reinstall our end cap here, so we don't have to worry about the mounting feet sliding off the crossbar while we're working. So, next we need to grab our fit kit here. So the first thing we're gonna grab, is our little rubber pads here. So, although they may look the same, there is a difference. We're gonna have two of each in our kit. Two are labeled 46 and two are labeled 45. One is for the driver's side, the other's for the passenger's side. So, next we're gonna grab the number 46 pad here. We're gonna be working over on the passenger's side, where we're just gonna clip this in place. There's gonna be a little groove here on the bottom, that's gonna line up with the notch on the foot. So, it's kind of hard to see, but once you get your hands on it, it will definitely make a lot more sense. But, we're just gonna place that over the little channel, just like so. And then, the next thing we're gonna do is, we're gonna take our metal car clip here, that looks like this. We need to do some assembly first. So, we need to take a couple of different things. We're gonna have a socket head cap screw, a split lock washer, and then one of these little rubber spacers here. So, how this works is, we're gonna take our socket head cap screw, our split lock washer, place that over there, like so. We're gonna stick it through the top of the metal car clip, and then we're gonna hold it underneath with our rubber washer here, just like that. Once we have that done, we can go ahead and insert it into the foot pack assembly here. So, we're gonna be lining up these two holes with the two rubber ears on our pad. It's pretty simple to understand. The raised portion here on the car clip, is gonna be facing out away from the vehicle. Just like that. Next thing we're gonna do, is secure our metal car clip and our rubber pad here to the foot pack assembly, using the hardware that comes with the feet. You're gonna get these smaller socket head cap screws. There's gonna be one on each end here. So, you're gonna have to line up three different pieces of material here. That rubber pad, the metal car clip, and then there's gonna be a threaded rod inside the foot pack assembly. So, just hold everything together and begin threading to line everything up. So, our aim right now is just to get them both started. We don't wanna tighten them down all the way, because we still wanna be able to move the foot inside the crossbar, like so. So we're just gonna get them started here, without snugging them up just yet. Now, we're just gonna repeat that same process on the other side. The only thing that's gonna be different, is we need to make sure that we're using the rubber pad labeled 45 for the driver. So, next thing we're gonna do is we're gonna come up to the roof of our vehicle here, and inside the channels here, these glossy black channels, you're gonna have a few different Torx bolts. So, these Torx bolts are gonna be spaced throughout these rails here. And these are the various points we can use to mount our roof rack. We'll have a couple at the front, one in the center, and then one at the rear. So, we're gonna go ahead and show you the rear. So, we're gonna take the Torx security bit here, that comes in the fit kit pack. And we're gonna use this to remove that Torx screw there on the roof, just like so. So, we're gonna have one on each side. We need to remove them both, for both the front and rear crossbar. So now, once we have our crossbar assembly partially assembled, we can go ahead and set it up on the vehicle here, and mount it to the points that we just removed the Torx bits from. So, I will say if you have an extra set of hands, that will help you with the step, but it is possible to do by yourself. So, now what we need to do, is we're gonna take the Allen head that comes in our fit kit. We're just gonna simply tighten down that cap screw into the factory fixed mounting points. Now, I will say this part is kind of tedious, because you don't have a lot of room to move your wrench, but just be patient, take your time, make sure we don't cross thread that bolt there, and we can get it attached to the vehicle. And obviously, we have to do this on both sides. So, the next thing we're gonna do, once we have both of those bolts tight, we have the fit clip of our mounting feet securely attached to the roof, we need to center our crossbar on the roof here. There's a couple of different ways to do that. The easiest way is just to simply measure from this point of the mounting feet to the end of the crossbar, and just make sure that's the same on both sides. Once we have it centered, we can tighten these two outer Allen bolts here, using the hex wrench that comes with the mounting feet kit. So, these are gonna actually tighten the crossbars to the mounting feet, so they can't slide back and forth, side to side. And then once we get this side buttoned up, we'll just simply repeat that same process on the other side. So, now the last thing we need to do, is take one of our covers here, slide it over the mounting foot, like so, and if you have the plastic lock cord, we're just gonna take a flathead screwdriver, turn that to lock it in place. If you opted for the metal lock cores, which are sold separately, you'd install those using the keys that Thule provides. Now we'll go ahead, and install that same cover on the other side. And we'll repeat this entire process for the other crossbar system. And that's gonna do it today for our look and installation of the Thule Evo Crossbars system here on our 2021 Jeep Grand Cherokee..
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