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When you’re loading up kayaks, paddleboards, or a full cargo box for a long trip, you need bars that won’t flex under pressure. The full-length aluminum crossbars on this Rhino-Rack Vortex setup hold strong with a 165-lb weight capacity. The solid build keeps everything stable on the road and gives you confidence when you’re hauling bulky or heavy gear.
Wind noise can wear on you fast when you’re covering miles of highway. These aero-style crossbars are shaped to cut through the air and use rubberized Vortex strips in the top channels to help reduce drag and whistling. The result is a smoother, quieter ride so you can focus on the drive instead of the hum overhead.
Whether it’s bikes, skis, fishing gear, or a rooftop box for your luggage, these bars let you switch between setups easily. The top channels accept channel-mount accessories while the bar shape works with clamp-on carriers too. You can mix and match what you already have or add new attachments without swapping racks.
Security matters when your gear’s sitting on the roof. The integrated plastic locks in the crossbars help deter theft of channel-mount accessories, and lockable cover plates on the legs secure the rack to your vehicle. If you want more protection, you can upgrade to all-metal locks (RRVA-LEC4 – sold separately) for added peace of mind.
Installing on a naked roof can be tricky, but this system takes out the guesswork. It comes as a complete setup with two Vortex crossbars, four 2500 Series legs, and a custom fit kit designed specifically for bare-roof attachment points. Once installed, it looks clean and fits securely without needing extra modifications.
Alternate Instructions
Videos are provided as a guide only. Refer to manufacturer installation instructions and specs for complete information.
Hi, Matt at etrailer. If you have a 2021 Honda Civic and you're looking for a way to carry even more items with you on your adventures, then the Rino-Rack roof rack is gonna be a great option for you. So let's check it out. Now, what I really like about the Rino-Rack rack is one, it's gonna be really easy to put on. It's gonna have some lock course for the extra security and it's gonna be a really good fit with our fit kit. Also important to note that there's gonna be a kit for the sedan and the hatchback variation.
Now you can actually use our fit guide on our webpage to make sure you're finding the right one for you 'cause really the only difference is gonna be this fit kit and how it is put on. But everything else is gonna be the same process and the same specs. So with that said, let's go over some of the features or the parts that come with this. So we're gonna have our 49" bars on top. We're gonna have the tower beneath it and we're gonna have that fit kit here in the bottom.
Now with this crossbar, this is gonna have an arrow design to that. That's gonna help reduce any wind noise when you're driving around. And on top of here, you're gonna notice this weather stripping. This weather stripping, it's gonna do two things for us, it's gonna help keep any debris from getting in there and it's also gonna help produce wind noise. The reason why we need this here is let's say you have a lot of clamp on accessories, but you have that one item that just doesn't work very well or you just want to use the T channel instead.
You can put those T channel accessories at this point here. You can cut these down the size and work with those certain accessories. And here at the very end, we're gonna have this end cap. This end cap has this plastic core on it at the moment, but what you can do is get this whopped out with a metal locking core with later on. We'll also have another channel here at the bottom.
I do recommend using some of your weatherstripping to cover this up to help reduce wind noise. But this is where you're gonna mount your tower into place and I like the design of this 'cause it's fairly simple. It doesn't really stand out too much. It's gonna have a metal lock quarter for that extra security like I was talking about earlier. And right here we're gonna have our fit kit and our fit kit is fairly simple, all it's gonna involve is a bolt that comes with your tower and this clamp and rubber pad. And this here is giving us our unique fit on our Civic today. Now what's happening is we're getting a really nice fit around here. There's no gaps at this point, and then the second point that's gonna be making contact, it's gonna be right at this point on top of our roof. You want something that's not gonna have any large gaps, and this here is pretty seamless. The first measurement I'm gonna get is gonna be the overall height this adds. This is gonna add about a little bit over 4 1/2,"" So that's a little bit taller for a roof rack. The biggest thing to keep in mind is if you have anything on here here like a roof box, just make sure you take the total head of vehicle, the crossbar and that box. Make sure you have clearance. Nice thing about Pacific though is a little bit more low profile than larger vehicles. Another thing to keep in mind is the space underneath here. So since it sits up higher, we're gonna have more space and this is gonna be a little bit over three inches. So even if you have some really bulky clamps, they're gonna fit just fine on here. And even we're gonna play nice with our sunroof because our sunroof actually goes inside instead of expanding on top of our roof so we don't have to worry about anything there. Now, if you curious what this one looks like for an installation, just stay tuned and I'll walk you through it. I have one of my crossbars already installed. Now it's gonna be the same process for either one of them. The biggest difference is there's gonna be a little bit of a difference in the measurements. You get to see where it's gonna be placed on your roof, but I'll go over that later on. How we can get started with this I also recommend grabbing two other things to help you out with this process. One's gonna be a tape measure so you make sure everything's even on your roof. The other one's gonna be just some painters tape. So we can mark things out just in case we need to make adjustments. This blue key, this is gonna be the first place we start with. I'm gonna come over here to the side and remove this end cap. All I have to do is put it in there, turn comes right out. You can do that on both sides. You're gonna flip it over and you're gonna put this tower into place. The way you're gonna do that is you're gonna have the squarer pull plate on the very top of it, that plate is gonna slide into that channel, just like that. Once you have it in there, you move it just kinda roughly to a random point. We'll get a measurement for that later on. But just make sure you do this on the other side. We can get the exact measurement of where this is gonna sit. If you reference your instructions, there's gonna be a measurement for your arrow bars like we have today from the inner side of this channel to the very edge of this tower on the inside. Now this is gonna be a millimeter, so if you're not super used to using that, you can try to convert that to inches. So I'm just gonna adjust this to fit my measurements. Once that's done, I'll come back over and then tighten this down. I don't wanna fully tighten this down just in case I have to make any adjustments and we'll do this on the other side. We're almost ready to put this on our roof, but before we do that, we wanna make sure that these plastic pads and their rubber pads are gonna be set to go. So you can look at your instructions and they're gonna tell you which way the arrows on them need to face. So once you figure that out, the plastic ones, you can put that on because we're gonna have these two bars that they're gonna grab onto, just like that. Press down to here a click. So with that rubber pad, you're also gonna have that error on it. It'll tell you which way it needs to face either forward or backwards. And it's also gonna say RR, for this one particularly, it's gonna mean the rear right side. And now I don't really like to go off that because right or left can really just depend on how you're looking at your vehicle. So what I do instead is come over here and I figure out how this indention is gonna sit on our roof and it's gonna push in just like this, that's how I know I'm gonna have a good fit on my Civic. I put the rover pads up here just to kind of leave them here and I'm gonna do a little test and make sure everything's gonna feel good. So I'm just gonna roughly map it out and that's feeling pretty close, most likely to what I'm gonna need. So I'm just gonna line these rubber pads and the plastic pads up, press down on this, might need to lift up sometimes. And these are actually gonna see into one another. Once you have it done on one side, you can do that on the other. Now before we make any adjustments to how the towers are sitting up here, let's make sure it's in the right spot. And the way we can do that is referencing the instructions to see where this part's gonna sit exactly. Now to find the spot for your rear crossbar, you need to find the spot for your front crossbar first. The way we're gonna do that is we're gonna use this point right where your front door closes and meets your rear door. We'll measure from there and use the center of that front crossbar. Reference your instructions for that measurement, it should give you one an inches and in millimeters. Once you have that, make your adjustments until it sits there. And then for your rear one, what we're gonna do instead is use the center of this bar, the center of the front crossbar. And if we're not sitting exactly where we need to, we can just adjust it by pulling this back one forward or back some and fit our needs. Once we finished with those measurements, what I did was I laid down some painter's tape. The reason why I did this is 'cause you can tell that I don't have the best fit on top of my roof right now. So I'm going to take this off and instead of having to measure it again, I can just put this down where the tape is. Now to figure out if you have a good fit or not, we're just gonna see how this rubber pad is sitting on here and it's sitting right on top. It's not flush with it. So I already know mine's sitting too wide. On the flip side of things, let's say I was sitting more like this, I would have to expand the towers to sit further apart from one another. And if it's really close but not quite a fit, sometimes you might get something like this, where it's flush, but back here, this isn't making contact with a roof, and we want that to be making contact with a roof just like this. Now that I've adjusted my tower, just by loosening up that bolt in there and pushing it in and then retitling it down, this is looking much better. So what you can do from there is tighten this down the rest of the way. And once that is fully tightened into place, then we can grab our clamps. You're gonna have a specific one for your front and back, so make sure you reference your instructions for that. But typically it's gonna be the longer one for the back and you're gonna use this bolt that's gonna come off the back of your tower. And this is just gonna go through that opening on your clamp and what I'll do here is apply some pressure to the back of this little nut in there to line them up. Once that's lined up, I'm just gonna try to thread it in place. Sometimes it's gonna be a little tricky 'cause you wanna make sure you don't cross thread it. Okay, that's feeling pretty good. What I'm gonna do here is I'm just gonna tighten this enough just so we have a little bit of resistance. You typically can tell when you do, 'cause this clamp is just gonna wrap around the gutter here just a bit. Once you have that done, then you're gonna repeat this on the other side. Then we can just go back and forth on either side. Tighten this little by little until this is all in place. Now the reason why you wanna go back and forth is just so you don't over-tighten anything, the way you'll be able to tell if this is all the way tightened down is when you're pulling on this. And if this is bedding quite a bit and becoming straight, you're good to go. Now we will say you can overtighten this. So for example, right now this is completely flush on either side, it's looking good, but when I go to overtighten this, you're gonna start to see this start to lift up and not make contact. And sometimes it's gonna matter on how you put things in place to begin with. But if you do over tighten it, all you have to do is just loosen it up a little bit. (crew members murmuring) And just make sure we still have that resistance on here, just like that. Then you can put on your end caps. I'll typically put on the one for your crossbar first, use your blue key, tie them down, and then the one on the bottom. And once these are both in place, make sure to do that in all the corners. Lock it up, take off your tape, and then you can load it up and take it out for a ride. And, of course, if you guys have any other questions, please let us know here at etrailer. But again, I'm Matt and thanks to watching.
Ratings & Reviews
Roseanne
8/12/2015
Its still attached to my car and still doing its job. I did lose an end cap and had to order 2 as a pair . I dont remember the amount but the were expensive as replacementsespecially since i knew it would happen
Jerry
3/20/2026
Still happy. Theres a whistle, but you can fix it with a bit of foam insulation in the bottom of the rail.
Michael
5/17/2025
Great high quality.
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Mark
8/20/2020
Still rock solid after a year. Very happy with the Rack. My daughter has used it from time to time over the past year when something wont fit in her car, and shes had no problems with it at all.