I’ve got a roof box off free cycle. Husband has gone mad!

[VWCJW]

Every holiday, my husband prides himself on taking hardly anything to a self catering holiday, and gets really stressed by me and my daughter taking a normal amount of clothes. He moans that it all won’t fit in the car and our kids sit with loads of stuff by their feet and piled up between them. This year, we have a long journey through France and our kids are getting taller so I got a roof box and my husband has got really upset and stressed about it. He says he doesn’t want to drill holes in his car and it means we will just take more stuff we don’t need. He was literally shaking about it. I’ve told him we will get rid but I don’t really want to. We have a massive box of footballs in the garage and I am sure they could be stored in the roof box so it won’t take up more room but he just says he hopes we will have less footballs in the future. He’s clearly not thinking properly as our son is really sporty and will probably end up with rugby and basketballs too, once at secondary school. Am I right to think that a roof box is a good thing? I see loads of cars with them. Or is he right and they are just an excuse to take a load of extra crap you don’t need?

Also, re football storage. I bought a plastic dustbin to keep in the garage for storing footballs, they don't take up much room then!

Would have been wise to have asked first, you prob over pack, I get in hold-all ( love to fly), pair of shoes, 3 dresses, 4 tops, swimwear , underwear, light extra stuff, travel mug, and large handbag (I don’t do shorts, just cropped trousers) , wear cropped trousers, cardigan/ coat,.
stay with family so no towels, you really don’t need much, esp if you buy stuff there

Have you just got the box, or the matching rails/bars/etc. suitable for the vehicle too? If not, who's sorting those bits out and checking if the ferry booking needs to be amended for the extra height?

Roof boxes are great. Bring down the fuel efficiency but don't affect the handling, unless you drive like Tony Pond stole it. We keep the bars on all the time, but the box lives in the shed when not required.

My kids have got loads of footballs. They must have at least 10. Personalised ones they get for Christmas from relatives, ones they buy with pocket money, ones they've got from their friends.
Is that not normal for football mad kids?
They aren't inside though they keep them in the garden in their goal.

Your husband sounds very dramatic OP. I don't know if I could put up with someone being so wet.

Roof boxes can cause up to 50% extra fuel consumption, it was on a BBC article recently.

At current prices that is the equivalent of paying £3 a litre for diesel!

I'd try to take less stuff and get rid of the new roof box if I was you

He is completely wrong about the holes, I’d take it to a garage and ask their cost for installing it. I think you need to put your foot down re this stressing before your kids start to think he’s a complete fun sponge.
Caveat-Are you really hoarders? You don’t sound like it. Footballs do multiply, I’m amazed at how many we seem to have and there will be boots and rackets and other balls, you are much better off planning a garage section for long term sports storage as you will need it!

my husband would now be doing washing several times a week. Ok, here’s the plan- you will do 2 loads of washing each weekend. This is the only way I can know you aren’t going to ruin my holiday if you get your way on storage, by packing so few clothes for everyone that washing literally has to be done every day and it turns out amazingly that you don’t want to spend your holiday washing but have instead carefully planned for me to spend my holiday washing. So Saturday and Sunday, a load each, and it needs to be nag free for a month. If this isn’t working out, I will go to a garage and have them install the roof box so we can BOTH have a well deserved holiday.

Sounds a bit like my DH - he's not a shaker (thank god!) but is very quick to tell what a bad idea, my idea is....whatever the idea....and then when we do it anyway, after a while he starts saying maybe my idea was actually OK, moving slowly towards saying how brilliant my idea was....then I hear him telling everyone about how great the idea was and how brilliant his wife is......and then we start the whole cycle again. At least I get credit for the idea though.....just takes him an age to come round!

I got a huge roof box for my car and it's brilliant, my car is only one year old and we got a garage to fit the bars for the box to sit on,if your car doesn't have roof rails they can attach certain bars to the car itself and thats to the best of my knowledge,.
I never heard of anyone needing to drill holes🙄sure wouldn't the car get all wet from the rain and it would be rather draughty

Does your dh ever bother to pack for the kids or does he just moan about how you do it?

When he says their clothes can be washed on holiday does he ever actually do that or is he just assuming you should give up holiday time to laundry?

If there is no space in the garage because of things like footballs, and he assumes in future there will be less of them, does he intend on sorting them out himself?

Or is he ne of those people moaning about things that he could fix but chooses not too because he is far too important?

You know you would save space and fuel by leaving moaning morris and his minimalist luggage behind....

Your roof box is a great idea BTW and well worth getting it, 😉

Who are these men and how the fuck do they get women to stay married to them

In fairness though if anyone on here thought they'd need to drill holes in their cars they'd be shaking to😄

Why would you need to drill holes in your car?
I think your husband sounds like a shielded little posh boy. If he’s THAT effected by it. What a first world ‘problem’ to have lol.

You'll burn more fuel, the car won't handle as well as it should, and anyway it's difficult to get stuff in and out.

I have a cousin with a smallish but modern car that can take the weight of a full roofbox and four people, so long as they don't overload the vehicle in terms of weight rather than bulk. They go on group trips use it for taking extra bedding for the airbnb and clothing and things like that not breeze blocks. The boot is very small. It does handle a bit differently, they are careful with stopping distances especially in the wet, but it works well for them and their friends. I know this as I've discussed it with them for getting one for mine although haven't yet. It is true that it takes more fuel although it's a hybrid and is very economical to start with they just take that into account when budgeting the trip. If you are short it is harder to get things in and out but their shorter friends just stand on the car where you'd get in and out and then they can all reach no problem. Or you could take one of those light folding step stools that folds nearly flat.

I can imagine, we will just do the same as other years but every time he moans about no room in the car, I shall just have the knowledge I did try to prevent it!

But why are you putting up with it @VWCJW?

If he moans about no room in the car, he isn't likely to think "I wish we'd brought the roof box" is he? He's just going to think, as you say he always does, that you shouldn't have brought so much stuff.

Stop capitulating to this man and make your own decision to take the roof box with you. It really isn't difficult to sort the roof bars, no drilling holes in the car necessary!

I sometimes wonder what people pack to manage to fill their car to the brim plus a roofbox. I don't think I'm a particularly light packer, but my car is never as full as half the cars on the motorway in the summer holidays.

That said, if you do need to take that much stuff, it makes sense to me to get a roofbox rather than all sit squashed in. And I certainly wouldn't start shaking if my partner brought one home.

There's five of us and we've always fitted our stuff for SC trips in the boot under the load cover.

That's great that it works for you but.... folk are different. We holiday in Norfolk and Yorkshire, which we all love, but I wouldn't dream of telling others that there's no need to think about going abroad, just because we don't.

I did say about putting it under a tarpaulin if storing outside, or maybe one of those green outdoor covers that they do in a range for everything from collapsed rotary driers to motorbikes - just to protect against light. That said, plenty of people (as on this thread) leave them on the car permanently - quite likely not in a garage - (does make me wonder why they don't just get a bigger car!) and they seem to survive intact. Thick black rugged plastic storage boxes designed for outside use tend to be just fine in all weathers, unlike the clear crates designed for indoor storage.

If storage is the concern, you can get huge collapsible bags designed to go on the car roof (affixed to the roof bars, like with a standard rigid box) and also, endearingly, car 'ruck sacks' - the same, but you strap them to the back of the boot! Obviously not as robust as the plastic ones, but maybe a useful compromise to consider?

As a slight aside, I only recently learned that the stated maximum weights for loading on car roofs only apply for when the vehicle is in motion - for travelling safety - but the roofs can often actually bear much more weight than that. You can get custom-designed roof tents for appropriate vehicles (typically minivans or estates - probably not a Beetle!) that two people can sleep in, along with a load of their stuff, sometimes up to about 500kg-worth!

you really don’t need much, esp if you buy stuff there

I get the basic reasoning behind this, but surely it's not always that simple? For food and things like toilet roll, yes, probably; but who wants to spend a day or so of their holiday traipsing around unfamiliar shops in unfamiliar villages, maybe with an unfamiliar language, trying to find all the stuff that they need for a reasonable price - stuff that they already have back at home? Isn't that how you end up with 12 footballs in the first place?!

Even at home, knowing all of the available local and regional shops where they all speak English and state UK sizes/specs, I'd still struggle to buy much of what I want/need without the internet, with a minimum 1-day wait for delivery. Plus, unless you're only buying consumables in the exact quantities that you will use up, don't you have to either bring it back anyway or wastefully throw (or give) it away again at the end?

We have a roof box for holidays, rest assured my husband didn't drilled holes into the roof of our car to attach it 🤣. Your husband sounds a bit unstable is he OK? Get some roof bars, tell him to chill.

create more space in car by leaving him behind?

Same!!

Good idea. You could store him in the roof box with the footballs

My dad used to refuse to have a roof rack when we went self catering when we were kids. We only had an old style mini, me & my brother's heads were nearly touching the roof because we were sat on piles of clothes & bedding with boxes of food round our feet, however we managed to take a pram as well I will never know.

Treat the fucker to a caravan.

You definitely don't need to drill holes!

What a bizarre reaction.

Only problem with a roof box in France is the issue of getting into parking because
Of height restrictions. We have to take ours off when we get to our caravan so we can fit into parking in the area. Depends how tall your car is.

^you really don’t need much, esp if you buy stuff there

I get the basic reasoning behind this, but surely it's not always that simple? For food and things like toilet roll, yes, probably; but who wants to spend a day or so of their holiday traipsing around unfamiliar shops in unfamiliar villages, maybe with an unfamiliar language, trying to find all the stuff that they need for a reasonable price - stuff that they already have back at home? Isn't that how you end up with 12 footballs in the first place^

All of this. I don't want to be shopping for things I already have on holiday when I could just take stuff with me.

I don't want to be keeping up with laundry on holiday either. I suppose you could not use the roof box, let DH go through with his packing light plan, then just sit on a sun lounger with wine and a book while he spends his time rinsing clothes out each evening and trawling the local shops for all the things you need but didn't take with you.