Help Me Choose

When you're uncertain about which roof rack brand to choose, there are a few steps you can take to help in making the decision easier.  The first thing you should do is check each manufacturer's fit guide.  If only one manufacture has a fit for your vehicle, your choice is clear.  When more than one brand has options, there are other factors to help decide.

By Price:
This isn't the best way to choose a system, as car rack manufactures monitor each other's pricing.  You'll often find that similar systems are within a few dollars of each other.

By Components:
Side by side comparisons of individual components might reveal an advantage of one part over another.  Perhaps you like the design of one company's bar shape more than the another's or maybe it's the way the system attaches to the vehicle.  Perhaps you're most interested in the styling of a component.  Much of this is subjective and asking advice from ten people could get you ten different answers since everyone has their own idea about what's most important.

By Capacity:
How much weight will a given system support?  If your transporting heavy load (luggage, kayaks, lumber), this should be a major consideration.  Weight capacity is found either in the manufacturer's fit guide results or by viewing the product manual.

By Cross Bar Spread:
What will the spacing from the front bar to the rear bar be?  When transporting long loads, this will be an important factor in providing the best support for long items such as kayaks, longer cargo boxes, and lumber.  Cross bar spread information is found either in the manufacturer's fit guide results or by viewing the product manual.

By Carrier Choice:
It's not uncommon for all the above factors to be so similar that the choice is still unclear.  When this is the case simply skip choosing the roof rack system at this stage and instead compare your carrier choices where you'll likely find the differences are more obvious.  So, for example, if you look at particular bike carrier and really like it more than the features of a competing brand, that would be reason enough to choose the matching roof rack system.