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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 on your vehicle's naked roof.
Features:
Specs:
Alternate Instructions
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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. If you have a 2025 Ram 1500 and you're looking for a way to carry those longer items that just won't fit in the back of your bed, you want something that's gonna look nice, be pretty easy to work with and it's gonna sit really nicely on your roof, then the Thule roof rack's gonna be a great option for you. So let's check it out. While your bed is great for hauling a lot of items, if you have anything extra long like ladders, lumbers or kayaks, you're not gonna have a lot of space back here. Now we have a 5-1/2' bed, but even if you had a 6-1/2' bed, those longer items aren't gonna fit back here very neatly. So the next best thing might be a type of cargo carrier on the back of your vehicle and a hitch.
Now the issue with that is I'm not a big fan of longer items fitting back there because typically they don't look very nice or they're gonna be really hard to maneuver still. So a lot of people will haul all those items in trailers and I think trailers are great and the only issue with that is they're gonna make the footprint of your vehicle a lot larger. And if you're driving through any really tight situations, they're gonna be a lot more difficult to maneuver. So that's why I really like roof racks. They're gonna really keep everything into just one footprint for you so you don't have to worry about any additional space your vehicle's taken up.
And what I also like about 'em is they work really well with ladder racks to make a sort of platform on top of your roof. But let's really focus on the roof rack we got today. And what I really like about the Thule roof rack is it's gonna be made of three components and each one of these components work great for what we have. So up top, we're gonna have the 60" wing bar crossbar, then we're gonna have this tower and then we're gonna have our fit kit. So what I like about this Thule crossbar is what stands out the most to me is at the very end, this end cap actually rotates over.
That's perfect 'cause that's gonna allow you to load up those T channel accessories a lot easier as opposed to some other racks where you have to take the end cap off completely. Now if you look into that T channel, that's perfect for if you have those T channel accessories. So if you struggle with getting anything to clamp around here, because if you have something like a ski carrier that you want at the very edge, you notice you don't have a whole lot of room to place that. So putting in your T channel, it's gonna help you get a lot more outta the real estate of these crossbars. It also has this built in weather strip, that weather strip's helping to reduce wind noise and it's gonna keep out any debris.
Another thing that's gonna help reduce wind noise is just gonna the shape of the bars since it has this arrow shape, making it aerodynamic. Now it's also gonna have another T channel that's gonna be right underneath here and that's what actually connects your tower to your crossbar. And what I like about these towers are just their ease of use. So we remove this end cap, we can see in here we're gonna have this bolt. And this bolt is what's holding everything together. So with a lot of other kits out there, we'll have to tighten down two, three, maybe even four bolts. This is nice 'cause we only have to worry about one securement point so you won't miss anything and it just makes your life a little bit easier to really work with. And this end cap, you notice we have this plastic core here. You can actually get that replaced. You can find 'em one of these on our website with a metal lock core just for additional security so no one can take your rack. And at the bottom, this is kind of what's making it stand out for me on our Ram and that's the fit we're getting right now. So if we look at how the base is sitting on here, we're kind of grabbing onto this edge and then contouring to our roof, we don't have any gaps. So this is doing two things for us. It is giving us extra security so we know we have a great fit, we know this isn't going anywhere. And two, it just looks really nice up here. Now if I open up my door, we see the second point how it's securing down. It's gonna be with this metal hook, it does have this sort of paint coating on it. So even with it making contact with our roof, we're not likely to scratch anything up. But let's get a few measurements just to see how this is gonna live on top of our Ram 1500. So the first measurement I'm gonna get is gonna be our crossbar spread. That's going to be about 29". That's important to know because knowing what type of accessories you have, you need to know if that's gonna really work with this crossbar spread. And this is gonna be at a fixed point so it's not recommended for you to adjust it. Now you could adjust it since these are just clamping on, they're not drilling into any set location, but I don't recommend that because it could mess up your fit somewhat. Now the next measurement I want to get is gonna be the distance underneath our crossbars, which is gonna be three inches. Three inches is pretty good. It'll allow for a lot of your larger clamps to fit around there. And there might be some instances where you do have a clamp that's extra large and maybe adjusting it might be a little bit tight for you. Something else to think about is if you have a sunroof on your truck and if that expands up, if you have those larger clamps, they could make contact with each other but just keep an eye on it. And the last one I want to get is just gonna be the overall height it adds to your vehicle. So that's gonna be about 4-1/2". Also pretty low profile. It's gonna add for more of a sleek design. And something else to consider is those low clearance areas. So I'd recommend taking the total height of your vehicle plus your crossbars and then anything on top of that so you know if you can make it under the spot or not. The spot to really think about would be a garage. Now something else to consider with the total height of your roof rack is if you're gonna use this in tandem with a ladder rack, 'cause if you do wanna do more overlanding activities and make a platform of sorts on top of your roof, you wanna make sure everything looks level. Some things to really think about is if you want to use a tent with this, because if things are a little bit off, it might not make your adventure as fun. And the last thing you wanna look at is just gonna be the overhang we have with these bars. Now the plus side is they're not sticking that far enough for you to really hit your head on or really hit anything on the side of your vehicle. The downside is we don't have a lot to work with here, so if you do have some clamp on accessories, they go on the very edge like I was talking about earlier with that ski carrier, there's not a lot of room to work with, but that's why we have that T channel up top. Now as far as the weight capacity is concerned, this is gonna be a pretty sturdy rack and what your limiting factor is most likely gonna be, it's gonna be your roof. So just make sure you find out what that is and then go from the lowest rated component so you don't damage anything. In my opinion, I think this is a great option if you are looking for something a little more premium that looks really nice on your roof and is easily able to be taken off and worked with. Because if you are someone who does like your truck to look nice, you go through car washes a decent amount. A lot of times people don't recommend keeping your roof rack on. So this is gonna be something that's super easy to take on and off, won't take you very long at all. Now if you like everything this does, especially with the fit we're getting on a roof right now. Then I'd also recommend checking out the Rhino Rack Roof Rack. That's just something that's gonna be at a more economic rate. And the only things you're really losing out on is just that ease of taking it off. While it still is easy to work with, just not as easy and you're not gonna have these end caps that allow you easy access to your gear up top. But what they do come with is some metal lock cores already installed, so that's definitely a big benefit. But if I'm being honest, I just like the look of this a little bit more on my roof. Now if you are curious to see what this installation looks like, just stay tuned. We'll walk you through the process. To begin the installation, I like to lay everything out. You'll also notice, I already have my front crossbar installed. It's gonna be the same process for both of them. Now we're gonna have the crossbar itself in front, we're gonna have the towers and their end caps. I like to layout my pads and clamps for their right location so you don't get mixed up with their placement. And we're also gonna have this included tool. It's gonna have this torque device in the very end of it. And I'd like to grab tape measure just to make sure everything's even. Where I like to start is with the crossbar itself. And again, I do like to orient everything. So it's gonna sit on your roof in this orientation just so there's no mixups later on. So just make sure you have that thicker part of your crossbar facing forward and the thinner part behind you. Now we just flip this around and we're simply just gonna remove these end caps. You just press on a tab here, you might have to wiggle it off to remove it completely. Some of these are a little bit tougher, some of these come off easy. And with that off, we're gonna grab this tower. Now if I try to put this on, you're gonna notice we have this bolt that's actually supposed to flip around and go into this channel at the very end of it, but it's not going in there right now. The reason is because this bolt here actually lifts up, you actually have to lift that up to put it in that channel. And the way you're gonna do that is this bracket here. If you squeeze that in to your tower, then it's gonna lift that bolt. So when you put this on, just make sure you squeeze, push it on and then release. And then that's really all there is at installing those towers. We'll just make sure we put on our end caps and then repeat that on the other side. While the towers are installed now, we actually need to put 'em in their right locations. So the way we're gonna do that is just by squeezing on the back of 'em like we did earlier to put it on and adjusting them. Now to find that right location, you're actually reference your instructions. It's gonna give you a number, but that's not gonna be in inches. What it's actually referring to is this measurement tab right here. You can actually pull and push on this and what you're trying to do is line up a number at the very edge of that channel. So once you find that number, adjust this. And then once you have this in the right location, then we are going to move this tower until it's flush with that tab. Just make sure you do that on both sides. And if you are having issues finding that exact measurement in your instructions, it's gonna be labeled as X for your front crossbar and Y for your rear crossbar. Before we get this on our roof, we're gonna grab those pads. They're gonna be those rubber ones I was talking about earlier and this is why I recommended keeping everything in the right orientation of how it would go on top of your roof. So right now, I have the one from my rear driver's side and on the other side, I'm gonna have my rear passenger side so I don't get mixed up. So the way this is gonna go on is you're gonna see this side that's gonna have these squares on it. I'm gonna flip this around and this is gonna be the side that connects onto this plastic foot. Really the easiest way to explain how this seats into one another, you just gotta line it up to the contours of the shapes of either one and just push. If you have issues with it, you could simply just remove the tower since we already have the location of where this tower needs to sit on here. But what's ever easiest for you. And once you have this one installed, just repeat that process on the other side. We're ready to put it on top of our roof now. Again, keeping the right orientation, thinner side behind us, thicker side in front of us. And when I do this, I'm just roughly placing it on top of our roof. Afterwards I can adjust the placement. Now this is a little bit of a struggle to put up there. So if you have a friend, this is gonna make that process a little bit easier, but it's still manageable by yourself. We can start squaring everything off and we're gonna use the Z and W measurements to figure that out. So in your instructions, a Z measurement is gonna be from the top of your windshield to the very front of this tower. Once you've measured that out on both sides, then you can move over to your rear one. And that process is gonna be measuring from the front of your front crossbar to the the front of your rear crossbar. They get that W measurement. And once you've got that measurement on both sides, everything should be squared off. What I'd like to do at this point, since everything's squared off, I like to check those fit kits to make sure they're sitting on there properly. And the dude that I'm just looking over here, I'm just checking how our pad is sitting or contouring to the top of our roof. And right now this is looking really flush. We don't have any gaps. I like the way that looks. Now if there's just the slightest bit of a gap, maybe like a millimeter, maybe two, then that should be fine too. When you cinch this down, you can check it again and make sure you do have that flush fit. Now if you have a pretty decent gap, maybe anything over a quarter of an inch, then I'd recommend adjusting these towers. They're pretty easy to do that. Again, you just have to lift that up, squeeze on that bracket, pull or push those towers to adjust where they need to sit and then try it again. And sometimes if one side is sitting flush, the other might have a fit here like this, we have a little bit of a gap. A lot of times that's easy to fix if you just kind of rotate the tower some 'cause these are still pretty adjustable, you can just take out a lot of that gap and get a better flush fit. Just make sure you recheck the other side and make sure everything is still looking good. We can start installing our clamps now. Now a lot of times the instructions will recommend you put this clamp on before you put it on your roof. I personally don't wanna do that or don't like to do that because that runs the risk of scratching up your roof. So I have to do that now. And the reason why I recommends the do this beforehand is sometimes when you put this clamp into this bracket, it's a really tight fit and sometimes it won't want to grab onto the gutter. An easy way to combat that is just to grab your Allen Key, loosen up that bolt that's inside of that bracket there. And once you loosen that up, you'll get a little bit more adjustments from here and then you can just push that clamp into place and see, mine's still a little bit tight, so I'm gonna have to come back through and loosen up a little bit more. Second time's gonna be the charm. And you can see I have a lot more space to work with. And the trick to this is since we got these hooks in here, we're basically trying to get to seat in place. So you're just pulling on the bracket and pushing up with the clamp and usually you'll feel a kind of a click or a grab on just like that and you can wiggle that back down. And then from here, you're just trying to tighten up this bracket, some of the clamp some by going back to that bolt. We're just trying to find a slight bit of resistance where we're just barely making contact with that gutter. After when we've done that, we're gonna repeat that process on the other side. Then I'm gonna go back and forth tightening each clamp because if you tighten one too much, it's gonna pull your roof rack to one side and it's not gonna give you a very secure fit. So just slowly secure each side until this is fully tightened down. Another trick too is if you're having issues getting that clamp into place in that bracket is just to put down some masking tape on either side on both sides of the towers and take this off and try it from a more secured location so you have a little bit more force behind to put behind here, 'cause it can be a little bit difficult sometimes. As you heard right there, when you hear that click, do that again. That click is letting us know this is secured all the way down. And from this point, I have to give it a good shake test to make sure nothing's moving and we have a good fit. And if you do, then you can grab your end cap, put then on at an angle, secure it until click clicks into place and lock this core. But that'll pretty much do it for our look at the installation and some of the features of the Thule roof rack on top of our 2025 Ram 1500. I'm Matt, thanks for watching.
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