How To Tie Things To Your Roof Rack

To secure items to the roof rack tie down the equipment with four points of contact.

How to tie things to your roof rack.

Make sure it doesn t exceed the weight capacity or you could damage your roof or roof rack. Improper tie down practices are all too common and many accidents and injuries happen because someone didn t take their time loading cargo on the roof of the car. Ideally you ll have some kind of roof racks to tie things onto. Most include the necessary tie downs as well.

There are multiple styles of carriers available. Check your vehicle s manual for how much you can safely carry on your roof rack. This will give you the most stability. It s important to use the right tie downs and place the item correctly on the roof rack if you want to avoid damaging your cargo or causing an accident.

Use ratchet or cam straps to tie the roof rack through the doors not the windows. Avoid strapping more than 180 pounds 82 kg to your roof rack. By using proper methods you can haul your cargo safely to your destination. And be mindful of your sunroof anything too firm or heavy could break the glass.

Roof racks have been known to fail at high speeds with lots of updraft so take the extra precaution of tying the roof rack down to the roof of the vehicle as well. These are great for a lot of reasons but mostly because they give you something solid to anchor to so that your roof mounted load. Foam blocks and crossbar pads are economical options that protect your canoe. While tying down the equipment hold the straps tightly so you do not need to tie a bunch of knots.

Choose your carrier to carry your canoe on a roof rack you ll need a carrier designed for this use. In the case of a naked roof you should be looping the rope through the car through the doors not the windows and around the object on the roof and a towel or blanket should be used to protect the roof of your car from the object. To safely tie an item to your car s roof start with all the windows down except the driver s window. Check the weight of the pipe that you re planning to strap to your roof rack.

Your owner s manual should say how much your vehicle s roof can support.