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This aerodynamic roof rack lets you carry gear and cargo on your vehicle. Full-length aluminum crossbars provide plenty of space for 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.
Hi, I'm Matt with etrailer and today we're talking the Rhino-Rack Roof Rack on our 2023 Jeep Grand Cherokee. Now, this would be a great option for you if you're running out of space in the back of your Jeep, whether you have a lot of people back there, a lot of luggage, or you have any longer items that can't fit in the back and you have to put it somewhere else like on top of your roof. This is also a system that's gonna have a pretty nice look on top of your roof and it's gonna be actually pretty easy to take on and off. So let's take a closer look at it. The one we have today is gonna be a fixed mounting rack. So what that means is the place where we have them right now is gonna be the only place that they can sit because they're gonna bolt onto your flush rails.
If you're not too sure if you do have flush rails, you're not too sure what type of roof you do have, you can plug in your vehicle's information into our fit guide to find what's gonna be the best fit for you. This is gonna be comprised of three components. We're gonna have our crossbars on top, we're gonna have our towers beneath that and that's gonna connect to our fit kit. So we're gonna start with the crossbar. This is gonna be a 49 inch arrow crossbar.
49 inches is gonna be the area that's gonna be stretching all the way across your roof. And what the arrow means is just gonna be the shape of the bar. This shape is gonna allow it to be more aerodynamic to help reduce wind noise. And above that, we're gonna have this weather strip. That weather strip's also gonna help reduce wind noise and keep any debris out from inside of here.
That weather strip is covering our T channel and what that T channel is used for a lot of times is for T channel accessories and there's gonna be items that just sit on top of your bar. It's not gonna be anything that has any clamps to it because in some cases you might want something just sitting on top of your roof, whether you don't have a lot of clearance underneath the crossbar or maybe you have a sunroof and you're worried about that sunroof making contact with your bars. We're also gonna have another channel right underneath here. We don't have any weather strips on it at the moment because we do keep this down in the shop and we do use this a lot for demoing test fits, so we just leave it off because it's a little bit easier to work with. But that's gonna connect to our towers.
The towers are gonna have this lock core on the very back of it and that lock core is gonna prevent anyone from coming by and taking this off, because behind that we're gonna have a bolt that secures your towers to your fit kit. Your fit kit is gonna be bolted on top of your roof and that's what holds the whole entire system in place. So that's gonna have this rubber cap behind it to prevent anything from being scratched up and helps it give more of a clean finish. We can get a few measurements just to see how this is fitting up here. So the first measurement I'm gonna get is gonna be the distance underneath our crossbars. So in the center, that's gonna be just around two and a half inches, which is pretty all right. If you have any really bulky clamps, it might come close to your roof but it shouldn't make contact. Now, when you should really start thinking about this is if you do have a sunroof up here and it does extend up, it could make contact, so definitely keep an eye on that or just stick to using your T channel accessories. And for the total height it's gonna add to your roof, that's gonna be just about four inches. That's actually really nice. That's pretty low profile for a roof rack, but what I recommend is just taking the total height of your vehicle, plus your crossbars and then if you have any gear on top of that, you include that as well, just so you know what areas you can make it under. Next one I want to get is gonna be our crossbar spread. I did mention this is a fixed mounting system so this won't change and that's gonna be about 24 and a half inches. So definitely make sure that your gear can accommodate that, and it's not gonna be anything too long, it's gonna be more of your standard sized boxes. Any of your really long items, like an extremely long kayak or canoe might be a little bit hard to get on top of here. But if you take a closer look at the very ends, you'll notice we do have a decent amount of overhang. It's gonna in line with our car, pretty much, you don't have to worry about sticking out too much. But that's gonna be a great place to put any items like ski carriers because it's gonna make reaching them a lot easier. Now, if you do have a kayak carrier, and this is probably like more of a smaller kayak, that should fit up here nicely too. Overall, this is gonna make a great choice for you because it is a pretty solid fit. When I go to shake it, it's sturdy and it looks pretty factory on top of our roof. And if you're looking for that option that is pretty low profile and needs to take on and off, this is pretty good for that too. If you're looking for something a little bit easier to take on and off but sits a little bit higher, then I'd recommend the Yakima SightLine kit. All it's gonna be is the same type of roof rack, but only instead of having to take off this end cap and then take off a bolt on each side, all you have to do is take off the end cap and then pull the door open and that allows you to take off the roof, so you don't have to deal with removing any hardware. But the counter side to that is it's gonna stick up a little bit higher. On the bright side though, that also has a little bit more adjustability to it because with the roof rack crossbar or the Rhino-Rack crossbars, you only have so much room for those towers that fit into the channels underneath while the Yakima one has one continuous one that goes all the way across. So you can even upgrade to even longer crossbars with the Yakima. But if you're not looking for anything too crazy, just something that's gonna sit pretty factory or pretty close to your vehicle, nothing is gonna be just fine for you too. If you're curious about how we got this on here, just stay tuned and we'll walk you through the process. To start off the installation, we're gonna lay everything out. So up front we're gonna have our 49 inch crossbar. Next to that we're gonna have the towers. And with the towers you're gonna have your end caps. And then finally, we're gonna have our right and left fit kits. Along with that they'll come with a rubber adapter too. Right here we're gonna have the hardware that'll help get your fit kits in place on your roof. You're gonna have some included tools. The first one is gonna be this tool or key for your crossbars to take off the end caps. We're gonna have the security allen key and you're gonna have this key too. What I recommend grabbing so you can use all of this is gonna be a wrench and I recommend grabbing a tape measure, just to make sure everything's even. And we're also gonna need either a flathead screwdriver or a trim panel tool. Now, if you don't have one of these, you can find it on our website or we can just opt to use a flathead. We're gonna start off with the fit kit. So to do this, we're gonna grab this kit that has the L on it for your left side. So that's gonna go on your driver's side. And we're gonna grab this rubber adapter. You notice there's a lot of holes at the very top of this. Those holes are gonna match up with the holes we have on here and these nibs. So what I like to do to get these together is to grab that rubber adapter, push it underneath, and we want to get this middle tab, to fit underneath this lip. So after when that's underneath the lip, it's attached, we can start lining up those nibs. Those nibs are gonna line up with these four holes. And you're just gonna apply pressure to the back of it until they poke through. And once this is complete, we can do that for the rest of them. Before we attach it to our roof, we're gonna need the other hardware that goes with this. So we're gonna have these two bolts and you're gonna use your included allen key to get these in place. The locations, just gonna go in these two holes on the side and they'll attach and screw in to your raised or flush rails. Now, you're gonna have these other bolts too. They're gonna be your hex bolts. And where these are gonna go, they're gonna go on the very top and bolt into place. But we won't be using these until we put our towers into place. So if you have any of these, just make sure you don't put them on the side. When you come up here, you'll notice there's gonna be some fasteners in place, blocking those holes we need to access. We'll take those off, we're gonna grab that trim tool or that flathead screwdriver. We're gonna have two sets of holes we can use. So this is gonna be the first set right here and next to it past this anchor point, there's gonna be two more. The ones we're gonna be using today are the ones closest to us. But if you have anything that's gonna be pretty wide, then you might opt in and use those wider options. That's just gonna depend on what gear and accessories you have. But to take this off, it's pretty easy. All I've got to do is get my trim tool underneath that fastener, have it grab on and then apply pressure. They're gonna pop right out. We're gonna grab that fit kit now, making sure you have the right one, the one that sits L on the driver's side, the one that has an R on it on the passenger side. And we're gonna wind this up with the two holes on the side of our flush rail. Make sure those bolts are lining up. And a trick I like to do with this is apply some pressure to the top of this so that rubber adapter that we put on it kind of flattens out a bit. Once it's doing that, we can start tightening these down. I like to start with my hand first. Just get them hand tight so they're grabbing on. After, when both are hand tight, then we can grab our included allen key and tighten them down the rest of the way. Once this is on there all the way, you can repeat this process on the other side. With our fit kits in place, we're gonna come back down to our crossbar. We're gonna start by removing the end cap, twisting and pulling it right off. Twist the other way. And you can remove it. And to get our towers in place, we want to make sure this block is loose because the block's gonna go right into that channel. If it's not loose yet, you just flip it around, grab this allen key and just loosen it up a bit. So we have a little bit more space underneath here now, we're gonna line it up now with the channel and push it in place. Sometimes you might have to reposition it underneath. So it grabs on. Just kind of roughly place it where you think it's gonna sit. Grab that cap, and then we'll just repeat this on the other side. With them both on, we're gonna tighten both sides, but not all the way. We just want it to be enough where it's gonna grab on to our crossbars so that can be sliding all over the place, but we still have the ability to adjust this if this isn't the correct fit for our roof. And we can finally start putting this on top of our roof. If you have a friend, it's gonna make it a little bit easier, but if you don't, it's perfectly capable too. We're just trying to line it up with those fit kits that we already have up top. You'll notice we've still got quite a bit of a gap here and that's why I didn't tighten it down all the way yet, so I could just adjust it like this. And right now it's still gonna be a little bit off. So all I'm gonna do is, since we have more overhang on this side, I'm just gonna hold this tower down and push on it until it's somewhat even. And if you want this to be exact, we can take out the tape measure and measure from our tower to the end of the crossbar and just make sure it's even on both sides. We're gonna grab that hex bolt that I was talking about earlier, and when we're finally use it now. We're gonna run it through this hole, the bottom of our tower, and that's gonna go through our fit kit too into our rails. Now, this one can be a little bit tricky to get to because there's not a lot of room to put my hand underneath there, but once we do get everything lined up, I'm just gonna hand thread it to begin with. And once this is hand tight, I can start using my wrench. And we're just gonna tighten this down and that's where it's gonna feel pretty tight. And once this is completed, you can repeat this on the other side. We still need to tighten this tower to the crossbar completely, because right now it's still kind of loose. So we're gonna take this allen key and find that bolt underneath here, I'll have to use my finger to find it first. Once I've found it, I'll line everything up and tighten it the rest of the way down. Now, if you are having issues with this, because it can be kind of tricky, you can undo those bolts we already tightened down and just flip this over and tighten it that way. The problem with that though is when you flip it over, things can kind of shift and give you a different placement of where your towers sit on your crossbar bar. And the final step is just gonna be putting on this end cap. We'll just line it up until it sits on there, check the key and lock it into place. That looks pretty secured. And then I'll just give it a good shake test, make sure everything feels pretty good. And if it does, then you can load it up with whatever gear you have, you can go take it on the road. But that's just a look at the Rhino-Rack roof rack on top of our 2023 Jeep Grand Cherokee. Thanks for watching.
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