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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 flush rails on your vehicle's roof.
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Hi, Matt with etrailer and today we're talking about the Thule roof rack on top of our 2023 Jeep Grand Cherokee. Now this will be a great option for you if you're running out of space in the back of your vehicle. Whether you have a lot of people back there or it's already full of luggage, your roof's gonna be a great option to store any of those additional items, whether you are using a roof basket or a box. So let's check it out. Starting off with the crossbar, this is gonna have an arrow shape to it, so what that arrow shape is gonna do is make it more aerodynamic to help reduce that wind noise. Something else that's gonna help reduce wind noise is this weather strip at the very top.
I was gonna also do a couple other things that's gonna help keep debris from getting in this channel. And what that channel is designed to do is to be able to be used with T track accessories. So if you ever run into the situation where you don't want to use any clamp on accessories, you just want something on the very top or you want something that's gonna go closer to the edge of your crossbar, anything like a ski carrier, this is gonna be a great option to use. You'll have another channel at the very bottom and what this channel is used for is to connect your tower to and your tower is gonna be what connects your crossbar to your fit kit. And what I do like about this design is if I remove this end cap, you'll notice we have all our hardware here and that's how everything works.
So that's a nice thing about having an end cap. It does a few things. It hides all that hardware to give you more of a clean finish and it helps protect it so no one can come by and just remove this because if you notice we do have this circle core right here, you can actually get that replaced with a locking metal core just for that additional security. And then at the very bottom we're gonna have our fit kit that's gonna be at that fixed mounting point like I was talking about earlier. This is what connects your whole rack to your vehicle.
Now for the design, I have mixed feelings about this one just because we have this gap at the very bottom of it. Now it does feel pretty snug and this doesn't hinder how it holds in place, but I just wish it didn't made full contact just to give it more of a clean finish overall. Let me take a closer look on how it looks up here. So the first measurement I'm gonna get is gonna be the total height and that's gonna be about five inches, which isn't bad at all. What I'd recommend doing is just taking the total height of your vehicle plus your rack, and if you have any gear on top of that so you know what areas you can make it under, anything like a garage.
As for the space underneath it, that's gonna be about four inches and that's a decent amount of space to play around with. So if you have any more bulky styles of clamps, then I think that should be fine. Now if you have a sunroof on your vehicle and it does extend up, definitely watch out for that because if that extends up and you have that really bulky clamp, you could make contact with it. Just keep an eye out. As for the spread, since this is a fixed mounting system, this is gonna be the same across the board and that's gonna be 24 and a half inches. So this is gonna be more ideal for if you have any roof boxes or baskets. Now if you want to haul any kayaks, it should be fine too. It might not be the best way to handle it because you're gonna have a lot of overhang of your kayak on either side. There is another option for you to use for the mix fixed mounting points. This is second set of holes back here that you could move the crossbar too, but we chose to go with this orientation because we don't have a lot of overhang. It's only gonna be a couple inches on each side. We're also gonna have a weight capacity of up to 165 pounds, which is a decent amount. But what I recommend doing is just checking what your roof is rated for. You can find that in your owner's manual. And then I recommend going from the lowest rated component so you don't overload anything. But in my opinion, I think this is a great option for anyone who does wanna haul those roof boxes or baskets and you want more of a clean look or finish on top of your roof. If you want an even cleaner look though, then I'd recommend another Thule option and that's gonna be the option with the flush mounted roof system. And you're gonna have a little bit less crossbar spread to go with that. So that's gonna be a sacrifice you have there. But if you want something with more of a crossbar use to it or something that's a little bit closer to you, so you can grab maybe those ski carriers at the very end of your vehicle, I think this is gonna be the better option for you. If you're curious about how we handle the installation process, just stay tuned and we'll show you how we did it. To start off the installation, I recommend laying everything out. So closest to me, we're gonna have the crossbar and furthest away we're gonna have the towers, their end caps, and the fit kit and hardware to install the system. You're gonna have two included tools are gonna be Allen Keys and a couple things I recommend grabbing. It's gonna be a flathead screwdriver, a trim tool, but you can use a flathead screwdriver for this too. And a tape measure, it's just gonna help make these a lot more even. You're gonna have this bracket, it's gonna have these bolts that go through these openings and attach to your flush rails. Let's go head up there. We already have the front crossbar installed. It's gonna be the same process for the rear crossbar though. And really, the only difference we gotta watch out for is in the back, we're gonna have two different locations to attach our crossbar and that's gonna depend on what your needs are. Whether you need a larger crossbar spread or a shorter crossbar spread, the location we're gonna choose is the closer ones and you'll be able to spot 'em because we're gonna have two fasteners on that flush rail. And to remove them, I'm just gonna take my trim tool, stick it underneath this tab, apply pressure 'til it pops out, just like that. Now you don't need a trim tool for this. You can use a flathead screwdriver. It's just gonna be a little bit easier with the trim tool. With both of those removed, I'm just gonna set these off to the side out of my way. You can store 'em somewhere so you don't lose them. And now we're just gonna take our brackets. I already have my bolts in it. I'm just gonna line it up with the two holes that the fasteners we inchesre in. And just hand thread these to begin with. After when they're pretty tight, when I've hand threaded, I can grab one of my Allen keys after when I tighten this down a little bit more. That's pretty good. I'm gonna grab this Allen key with the security hole on it and then tighten this down the rest of the way. Now after when you have this bracket installed completely, you can repeat that same process on the other side. We'll come back down to our table and move over to the crossbar. We're gonna flip this over. You notice we have these end caps and to remove those end caps, I just can't pull it off. I gotta push down on this tab that's in this channel, apply pressure and then pull. It's a little bit easier if you do it with two hands. We push down with one, you pull with the other. With that out of my way, I'm gonna grab our tower. I wanna make sure this is facing the correct way. So we want this bolt to be facing out. Then we're gonna line up these tabs on the bottom with this channel on the bottom of our crossbar. Just roughly slide this into place. We don't know exactly where it needs to sit, so that's okay. I like to put my end cap back on so it doesn't fall off. What you have to do is just push it back in, go grab back into place. And for installing most of our fit kit, it's pretty straightforward. So what I like about what Thule does is they'll label each one of these parts with A, B, and C. This one's labeled A and you're just gonna follow it in that order. So to install this, I just need to flip it around, making sure this tab that's sticking out is closest to our tower. You can install these before you put your towers on here. Either way is gonna be just as easy. And the way that goes on is just you have this opening on clamp A and that bolt runs through. Then we're gonna grab part B, which is gonna be this rubber base. We wanna line up these tabs with the openings on the bottom of your tower. So I'm just gonna flip it around. You wanna get it underneath this lip right here. Once it's underneath there, pushing this into place is gonna be a lot easier. And once that catches, we're pretty much ready to put it on top of your roof. Now you can put clamp C on now. I think it's a little bit easier to wait to put that on, but once you have this in place, you can repeat that process on the other side. We can put this on top of our roof. Now when you're doing that, you wanna make sure it's in the right orientation. So we're gonna have a thicker side. I want that to be in front of me. And then we're gonna have this thinner side and I want that to be facing behind me. So once I've established that, I can come over here, just lift up and line it up with my fit kit that's already installed. I'm just gonna roughly place it on top of my roof. It doesn't have to be perfect yet. I'm just gonna lay it over here. Once you have it roughly in place, we can start making some adjustments. So we, the way we want this to grab onto our fit kit is that tab on the back. We wanna make sure that's grabbing in this opening behind our fit kit that's on our roof. So it looks something like this. And once that's lined up, we can just repeat that same process on the other side. It's really easy to adjust this because when I push this crossbar, you can see it moves really easy. When the backside of the towers feel pretty secure, we're gonna start installing clamp C. So to do this, we're gonna have this opening on top of clamp C and we're gonna line it up with the very top of clamp A on that tab. Just push it on into place. You might have to lift up and angle it and we'll slide on. And you'll notice this bolt is hanging a little bit low. What I like to do is grab this next piece, and this is gonna cinch down your clamps together, it's gonna have this threaded inside to it. I like to just push this in at an angle and lift up and then start threading it into place. If it's not grabbing immediately, you might just have to rotate it around until it grabs on. And this is what's gonna secure all your clamps together. We don't wanna do this all the way quite yet. We just wanna get it hand tight 'cause we still need to adjust how these crossbars are sitting. To make sure the crossbar is even, I'm gonna grab that tape measure we we inchesre talking about earlier, and I'm just gonna make sure the overhang is the same on both sides. I'll measure this side, measure the other side if it seems a little off. The way I can adjust this is, like I was saying earlier, I personally like to grab my tower while I do this, but you can either push or pull on it some just to adjust how everything's sitting. Once everything is where you want it to be, I also recommend just coming behind here, way over right in this location. You'll find this tab. I just like to push this all the way against our tower. You don't have to do this. But if you are taking this on and off, this is gonna help it be a lot easier to put on in future uses. When you like how everything's fitting, we can tighten this the rest of the way with this included tool. Now this one's gonna have this torquing device on the end of it. It'll start clicking when it's all the way tight, just like this. It lets you know it's not gonna move and you don't need to tighten anymore. And if you notice, it also secures our crossbars from sliding around. So everything looks pretty good a this point. We can grab our end caps, place them on, recommend grabbing that flathead screwdriver and locking this into place. But after that, just kind of give this a good shake test again, recommend doing both of 'em. If nothing's moving and it feels pretty good, then you can load this up with whatever gear you have. 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.
Average Customer Rating: 4.8 out of 5 stars (55133 Customer Reviews)
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 flush rails on your vehicle's roof.
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