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This aerodynamic Thule roof rack mounts flush on your roof for a sleek, factory look. Crossbars with split rubber strips in top channels work with channel-mount and clamp-on accessories. Installs to flush rails on your vehicle's roof.
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Alternate Instructions
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Videos are provided as a guide only. Refer to manufacturer installation instructions and specs for complete information.
Hi, Matt with etrailer and today we're talking about the Thule roof rack on top of our 2023 Jeep Grand Cherokee. Now this can be a great option for you if you're running out of space in the back of your vehicle and you need to store any of those additional items somewhere else because maybe you got a lot of people with you or you're already storing a lot of your other luggage back here. Putting it on top of your roof is going to be a great option, especially if you do have a roof box. So let's check it out. The reason why I say this is great for more items like roof boxes is because we don't have a lot of real estate on our crossbars and that's because these are flush mounted crossbars and what that means is we don't have any overhang, it just ends at the tower. So, which is nice if you want that more clean design to your crossbars, but if you want anything to put up here like a kayak or skis, that's gonna be a lot more difficult because you're gonna have to reach over here a lot more.
So that's why roof boxes or baskets are gonna be more ideal for this. But if you do have a kayak you wanna throw up here, you don't wanna reach all the way across or it's not gonna be compatible with this roof rack. Thule does have another option that does have overhang. So you'll be able to choose whichever one's gonna be better for you. But for now we're gonna talk about the one we have up here.
It's gonna have three components to it. We're gonna have the crossbar itself, we're gonna have the tower and the fit kit at the bottom. So taking a closer look at the crossbar, this is gonna be 34 inches long, so that's gonna be the amount of space you're gonna be playing with up here and we're gonna have this aero design to it. The aero design's gonna help reduce wind noise so when you're driving down that road you don't have to deal with that whistling. Another thing that's also gonna help reduce wind noise is this rubber strip at the top and that weather strip is gonna keep a lot of debris out as well.
What that's protecting is this T channel. Your T channel is used for your more T channel accessories. So if you ever came across a situation where you didn't want to use a clamp on accessory for whatever reason, then you could stick with using the T channel and also with T channeled accessories, you can get 'em a lot closer to the towers. Then we're gonna have the tower, the towers gonna hide a lot of that hardware that's underneath here and gonna give it more of a clean finish overall. I'm a big fan of this design because it is more squared off which matches our Jeep design.
So I'm gonna have this plastic lock core at the very end of it and what that plastic lock core is doing is just preventing anyone from walking by and opening this up. Now if you do have a flathead screwdriver, you can open that up real quick and easy, but you can get this replaced with some metal lock cores for additional security. And at the bottom we're gonna have our fit kit. Your fit kit is what connects your roof rack to your vehicle on your flush rails. The way this is gonna be bolted in is just two bolts on the side. So that's gonna make this a fixed mounting system. What is a fixed mounting system It is something that only stores at one location on your roof so you won't be able to play around with your crossbar spreads. Talk a little bit about that tower, but let's take a look what's underneath that end cap. So now that I've unlocked it, I can remove it just by pulling it off and you can see this is the main reason why we wanna hide all of this because a lot of this out in the open isn't gonna give you that clean finish, but it also prevents anyone from unloosening any of these screws up. Now at the top you'll notice we have these notches. What those notches are, it's designed to help make sure everything is even up here, but really when we were installing this we didn't have to worry about that too much. So that really does speak volumes about how easy this installation is. Now something I'm not a big fan of though is when you do remove this you do have to have a tool to remove this clamp and it can take a little bit and when you do have it removed, it's just gonna leave this block on top or this bracket on top of your roof, which isn't gonna be a super clean finish. If you're looking for something that's gonna have a cleaner finish or if you plan on taking your roof rack on an awful lot, I'd recommend one of the Yakima systems, they have the option to remove the crossbars and those landing pads that they sit on have these caps that go on top of it, providing that more clean finish. We can talk about how this is gonna sit on top of our roof now. So the first measurement I'm gonna get is gonna be the distance underneath our crossbars, which is going to be a little bit under four inches, which is actually pretty good. That's plenty of room to put any clamp on accessories on here. So if you have any of those, definitely use them. And for the overall height, we're gonna have about five inches, which is a decent amount that sticks up, but like I said, that's gonna give you plenty more room underneath the crossbars to put on those clamp on accessories. What I also recommend doing is taking the total height of your vehicle plus your crossbars and then if you have any gear on top of that, include that measurement too so you know what areas you can make it under like your garage. Now I know earlier I talked about how this is a fixed mounting system. Let's see what that crossbar spread is. So this is something that's not gonna be able to move. So this is gonna be about 25 inches right here. So this is more ideal for those more smaller items like those roof boxes or baskets. As far as installation goes, it is fairly straightforward. I didn't really struggle with it too much. Now it can be a little bit intimidating when you first get all the parts laid out in front of you because there is a lot of hardware and a lot of clamps. But if you just kind of bear with it, Thule does do a pretty good job at explaining how everything works. But if you still need a hand with it, just stay tuned and we'll walk you through the process. To start off the installation, we're gonna lay everything out. So closest to me we're gonna have the crossbar itself. Up front, we're gonna have our towers and the hardware that comes along with them. It's gonna include these bolts and these clamps and your fit kit as well. You're gonna have some included tools you'll be able to use. The tools I recommend grabbing are gonna be either a flathead screwdriver or a trim tool and you'll see why later on in the installation. Our first step is gonna be grabbing this bracket. This is gonna be your fit kit and we're gonna grab these two bolts too. And this is just gonna be installing this bracket onto your flush rails. You notice we already have our front crossbar on there. It's gonna be the same process for either one of them though. I also recommend grabbing the trim tool because we're gonna need that for this next step. With the trim tool in hand, we're gonna come over to those fasteners on our flush rails. You have two sets. Wanna go with the ones closest to our front crossbars. Pretty easy to get out if you have that trim tool, just stick it underneath there, apply pressure and it'll pop right out. If you don't have a trim tool at home, you can use a flathead screwdriver for this. I'm gonna grab a bracket and the way we want to position this is with this overhang over our flush rails. It's gonna sit just like this and we're gonna line it up with those holes we just revealed from those fasteners and just hand thread those two bolts in to begin with. Once they're both pretty hand tight, I can come over and grab one of our included Allen keys. This is gonna be the one with the star pattern on it and this is gonna be the security Allen key. You're attaching that down the rest of the way until it feels pretty snug and once this bracket is fully tightened down, you can repeat that process on the other side. The reason why we're choosing this point right here to attach our crossbars to is because we don't have a lot of crossbar to really work with, so we're gonna have less of a crossbar spread and that's probably 'cause we're gonna be using items more like roof boxes up here. Now if I was hauling something a little bit longer like a kayak, I'd probably opt to go with these points right here that are further away, which is gonna give us a longer crossbar spread. We're gonna come back down here and we're gonna attach our towers to our crossbar. And to do that I like to remove this end cap first, make sure it's in the unlocked position And wanna come over here with the tower and try to put it in place. But you'll notice when I do this it won't seed in and what's happening is you'll see we have this block right here that needs to catch on the inside of this tower. So if I pull up this weather strip, you'll see what I'm talking about. With that pulled up, you'll see this square opening. That's where we want that to line up with. So if this is still kind of hard to push down because it needs to get under this lip at the front and if it won't push down enough, what you can do, set this back down. Grab your included Allen key, the one with the torque device on it and we're gonna loosen this up some. Loosening this bolt will push it out a little bit further and should help relieve some tension back here so you can apply more pressure. We're gonna come back over here, apply that pressure now so it gets right underneath there. Sometimes you might have to put a fair bit pressure on it but it should eventually catch on. And as you push this in, it should meet that opening right there, you hear it click and you can pull back. You notice it won't come out. After when you have this installed, you can repeat that process on the other side. And now we're gonna start putting together the clamp assembly and each one of these will have a letter that is marked with, so this clamp here is gonna be marked A, this rubber attachment is gonna be marked B and the secondary clap is gonna be marked C and that's gonna be the order that you attach 'em to your tower to. So I'm gonna grab A, come over to the back of the tower and we're gonna line this up into place with these front top tabs going over the top part of this tower. And you can have this opening where this bolt runs through. After when that's gone through, I recommend just flipping this over real quick, holding that clamp in a place that it doesn't fall off and we'll see a few more openings at the bottom. If you notice those openings look similar to these tabs or nibs sticking up, we're just gonna align each one of those into place and apply pressure until it grabs on. A lot of times this metal hook on the back of here will get in the way. So just make sure you push it around and it should seed in place. And then finally we're gonna grab clamp C. Make sure it grabs around the top of A and once it does, you apply pressure and that bolt should run through C as well. This is when you'll grab some additional hardware, it's gonna be this section and you'll notice it has a thread side. You'll want to put that thread inside on that bolt and this will help keep everything into place. And all you need to do is just hand tighten this a little bit. You don't have to go too tight, just enough so nothing falls off. And we have both sides prepped. We can start putting this on top of our roof. When you're placing this up there, we wanna make sure that the thicker side is facing forward and this thinner side is facing behind us. Once you've done that, we're just gonna line it up with a fit kit we already have installed on our rails and just roughly place it up here. It might be a little bit too long or a little bit too short to begin with, but we'll be able to adjust so it can fit. It helps to get one side into place when you do this, but when you are doing this you wanna make sure that this clamp is grabbing around the metal bracket of your fit kit. Right now mine's not quite getting there so I gotta loosen this up a bit so that clamp can extend a bit more. And as you can see it's dropping into place. I'm putting my hand back here to make sure it's going through this opening on the backside. And once it is and it's wrapped around the front side too, I can tighten this back up. And once it's hand tight, you can grab your included Allen key, the one with the torque device on it and we can tighten this up the rest of the way until it clicks. And we wanna make sure that the crossbar is even on both sides. So how you do that is just grab onto your tower, either pull or push on it. I'm just gonna pull mine just a tad bit. I find that a little bit easier to pull 'cause whenever I've tried pushing it, it doesn't really move a whole lot. But when you have this where you want it to be, you can grab that included Allen key again, tighten that bolt right here and this will tighten down where your crossbar sits on your tower. Again, you'll want to keep tightening this down until this starts to click in place. Just like that. With everything tightened down, I'm gonna grab that end cap, make sure I push it on both sides, just kinda grab it on there, lock it back into place. And from here I can give it a good shake test. What I'm looking for is if there's any movement or a little bit more wiggle than I want, but this is feeling pretty sturdy. I'm feeling pretty confident about putting things up there. And then I can load it up with whatever gear I have and then you hit the road. And that was just a look at the installation and some of the features of the Thule roof rack on top of our 2023 Jeep Grand Cherokee. Thanks for watching.
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