Rhino-Rack Vortex Roof Rack for Tracks - Aluminum - Black - Qty 2
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2011 Dodge Dakota
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2011 Dodge Dakota
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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 tracks on your vehicle's roof.
Features:
Specs:
Alternate Instructions
Videos are provided as a guide only. Refer to manufacturer installation instructions and specs for complete information.
Hi everyone, Aiden here at etrailer. Today we're gonna be taking a look at and showing you how to install this Rhino Rack Roof Rack system on our 2022 Ford Maverick. Now a roof rack is good for a number of things, especially here on the Maverick. We do have a shorter bed, so anything longer like lumber or a kayak, it's hard to put in the bed. Putting it up on top of the vehicle might be a better option especially with kayak carriers being so easy to mount on these roof racks. I see that being a really big benefit here and not having to worry about the small bed space.
Or you can get a bike rack up here if you don't wanna put one in the hitch or in the bed and you've got the options for roof boxes and baskets. If you don't have a tunnel cover for your bed and you want to keep some stuff safe and secure and you don't have the room inside, the roof is the next best place to go because you can have a box locked up or just get that stuff and a basket strapped down on top. Whatever you do decide to carry, just make sure you stay within the weight capacity of 165 pounds. As far as roof racks go, that's a pretty standard amount and it's a pretty good amount. So anything less than that, I'd maybe be a little wary of just because it does limit you quite a bit.
But 165 pounds should be enough to get you going. So let's talk about some of the pieces of this roof rack kit because that is a full kit. The cross bars up top are gonna be the main piece. These are gonna be 54 inches long and on the Maverick they don't leave a ton of overhang on the sides. Now if you wanted to get longer bars you could get those separately.
If you wanted to use this with something like a Lotus Assist kayak carrier that will help you load up a kayak, you do need overhang on your crossbars to make those work. So it's just something to keep in mind. If you don't plan on using something like that then this should be just fine. I think it gives a really nice complete look to the Maverick and I like the fact that it doesn't have too much overhang, makes it look like it fits really well in the truck. Now on the end, you've got end caps that can be removed using the tool included in your kit and that will expose the inside T track.
So you can peel up this rubber stripping and use the T track to attach different accessories. Just keep in mind that you will have to cut and trim that weather strip to length. That's one thing about Rhino Rack's roof racks that I don't love, because with other systems like Yakima you can just slide your accessories in and that rubber strip will conform around it, no cutting needed. The other method, if you don't want to worry about any sort of modifications like that is to just clamp your accessories around the bars and that's probably the most common one. And for me, that's probably the way I would go too. These crossbars are an elliptical shape and they're gonna work really well with pretty much any clamp out there. It's a pretty standard size and you've got more than enough room underneath the bars to attach those clamps without interfering with the roof. As far as how much room you have at its lowest or closest point, you've got two and three quarters an inch from the roof to the bottom of the crossbar. Again, more than enough room for any sort of clamp that you might be attaching. And then from the roof to the tallest point of the roof rack is gonna be four inches, so it doesn't add too much height to the vehicle either. Your mounting locations for the crossbars are fixed, and that distance between your crossbars is gonna end up being 28 inches. That's gonna work really well for pretty much any accessory. Most accessories will have some adjustability with their clamps so they can meet different crossbar spreads, but 28 is a really good kind of middle of the road number that should work well with a lot of accessories. One thing I will point out with the Maverick specifically is going to be the antenna placement. It's kind of an in inconvenient spot and comes really close to the roof rack here because roof space is pretty limited. Now depending on the accessory you plan on putting up here this may or may not be a concern. Any sort of kayak carrier that holds the kayak more vertically, or maybe a bike rack where you can kind of offset them, probably not gonna be an issue because you're not gonna be coming into close contact with this. But any sort of basket or box, I would be wary of this because this is gonna limit our space quite a bit. Now there's a couple different solutions you can come to here. You can just remove it by unthreading it, or something I would probably do myself is actually swap this out for a shorter antenna. And if you do choose to do that, anything that is two and a half inches or less will clear with the crossbar. So if you do plan on adding one of those aftermarket, just make sure it's shorter than two and a half inches and you won't have any clearance issues with the crossbars. The legs are what attach the crossbars to the base of the roof rack system and those are lockable. So upon removing those, it exposes all the hardware that we use to attach the roof rack, and whenever we put it back in place and lock it up, it keeps all that stuff safe and sound so no one can mess with it when we're not around. And it gives the roof rack a pretty complete look. And the final piece of our puzzle is the fit kit underneath. These are the rubber pads and the clamps that attach. These are gonna fit and match the contours of our roof since it is a naked roof and it doesn't have any preexisting rails or mounting points for threaded bolts. This is what lets us attach it and that clamp will just go on the inside of the door jam here, clamp underneath, and you can just shut the door on it like that. It actually works out pretty well for naked roofs. I've had a roof rack like this on my car for many years now and it's always worked out well for me and I've never had any security issues with it. As far as the installation goes, it's gonna be really straightforward. Rhino Rack does a great job at making a system that's very easy to install. There's really only two bolts we need to worry about and one tool that comes with the kit. So let's go ahead and show you how we got ours installed. We're gonna start our installation off on the ground with our crossbars. Now I've already got the weather strips installed in the top. It's real easy to do, just pop 'em into that top channel and then on the very ends, you'll need to cut one of them to length so just make a cut and get that popped in. Then I've also got the end caps off so that we can slide our legs in. (crossbar clanks) These are gonna be having a bolt and a block. I'm gonna leave that block loose enough so that we can move it back and forth and slide this into the track on the underside of the bar. As we slide it in, you will also have a measurement strip much like the weather stripping up top that we can cut to length. These crossbars aren't staying on the vehicle though so we're not gonna cut those strips and make modifications to it. We're just gonna take our measuring tape and measure out the distance between the end of the track and where it meets the leg. And again, for that strip that's included you would just cut that to the length specified in your instructions (tape measure clatters) and then you can butt it up right against the cut you made. Once you've got it in position, tighten it down using the included tool and repeat that process on the other side. A quick note with the tool that's included. As you're tightening these bolts down and pushing with your thumb on this curved part here it'll start to flatten out and once it flattens out that's when you know it's properly torqued down. We'll see this later again during the install as we do the clamps. At the bottom of the legs we can turn our attention to our fit kit. These are gonna be the rower pads that come in a separate box with all your hardware. And what we need to look at with those is the number on the bottom of the pad and an arrow. Your front crossbar is gonna have two different numbers, one for the front passenger, one for the front driver's side and the rear crossbar, it's gonna be the same on both. The only thing we wanna pay attention to is that arrow and make sure that when we have the setup on the vehicle that the arrows are facing outward. The bottom of the pad that has the number in the arrow is what's gonna be touching the vehicle. So I'm just gonna get it over to the leg, match the holes up, and get it pushed into position. Now we already have our front cross bar in place because in your instructions they give you measurements for the correct places to put these bars. The front crossbar, you're gonna go to the center between the two doors and measure to the center of the bar where you can see an arrow. That's gonna be a certain measurement, specified in the instructions, and the rear crossbar is gonna be based off of the first one. So we're gonna do the front one first. I'm just gonna set it up loosely in place for right now and it can help to have an extra set of hands on the other side of the vehicle to guide things over. But generally, as long as that pad is fitting around the lip on the roof here it should be fitting on the other side just fine, so long as our other measurements are good. From there we can grab our tape measure and take a measurement from the center of our front crossbar to the center of the rear one, right where that arrow is is a good measure of center, and make sure that it matches the measurement in our instructions. (tape measure clicking) Whenever you're making those adjustments just make sure you make it on both sides to make sure that the bars are running parallel to each other, and make sure that as you're doing that the pad is still making good contact around the lip of the roof. With everything in place, we can get it clamped down. The clamps are gonna be the same for all four locations and so are the bolts. So no need to worry about those. And what will happen is the bolt will feed through the hole in the clamp and thread into a block located on the inside of our leg. It's gonna be hard to see with my hands in the way but just get it loosely started by hand. Make sure that you don't feel any sort of cross threading. And as you do this, just get it loosely secured on both sides. You don't wanna fully tighten down one side because what it's gonna do is just pull the whole crossbar over to that side. So you want to jump back and forth between the two bolts making sure that they get tightened down evenly so that it keeps the crossbar even on the roof. Now as we are tightening these clamps down with our tool you will notice the clamp start to become more and more flush with the inside of the door here. That's perfect. Once everything's torqued down properly and our tool is flattening out like we saw earlier, we wanna make sure that there's really no gaps in there and everything's making good contact. Once that's done, the install is complete. We can finish things up by just popping on our end caps, both for the crossbar and locking it with the included tool and the towers or the legs themselves using that included key, making sure everything's secured. And I always like to give it a good shake test just to make sure everything feels nice and solid on the roof and that I'm not seeing any movement or gaps in any of the clamps. But everything looks really solid and I'd say that we're good to go. And that'll do it for our look at this Rhino Rack Roof Rack System on the top of our 2022 Ford Maverick. Thanks for watching.
Ratings & Reviews
Gwendolyn Y.
3/6/2025
Hey Joseph! Glad that we get to always help you out with your hauling needs! What kind of gear do you haul on your roof?
Heather A.
3/22/2022
Thank you for your review on the installation of your rack. If the garage has a clearance of 6 feet, you will not be able to park there with your CR-V with the rack on. The CR-V itself is 5.5 feet tall.
Michael K.
11/1/2017
Really enjoying my roof rack. Yes, its been just over ayear since my purchase. Rack has held up great, no issues. Has survivednumerous Texas severe storms and numerous high speed 80mphtrips from SanAntonio to Tucson Arizona. Rack does surprisingly well in high wind eventsand high speed. Simply put, install it correctly and itll handle youreveryday hauling needs. Oh yeah, it looks great to on my Santa Fe.
Doug H.
2/13/2020
These bars are hanging in there and holding on strong! My Discovery Sport is in the elements 99.9 of the time and the paint on these crossbars is not faded and there is no rust. The rubber seems to be holding up in the hot Louisiana sun. Ive pinched the very grippy rubber strips with heavy loads, so that is showing some wear, but otherwise its rock solid. The plastic endcaps dont feel brittle and theyre still quiet and strong. Thank yall for a great product for this vehicle!
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Michael J.
2/11/2018
It is working very well. I have had others ask me about it, as well as sharing info myself and referring them to you. Im still loving it. Will use even more this summer. Three kayaks Ive loaded max. Also building materials not at the same time. And it looks so stylish, I leave it on year round. Also, people are jealous of the non slip grip.Thanks for following up.