Roof boxes... who's got one, are they worth having and more to the point... why do they cost more than my whole tent?

[AitchTwoOh]

and it looks like i've got to get roof bars fitted as well? can anyone help?

i've phoned my local chap who says that for £80 he'll fit some montblanc roof bars and then he can hire me a box for £20 a week thereafter. this is probably as good a plan as any i think. i asked if he'd be fitting them over the car doors and he somewhat sniffily told me that if the wind whistled through them then they hadn't been fitted properly.

anyway, what do you think? £80 and then a wee try-out of the box? and if necessary i'll buy one and keep it at a pal's once i work out what we need? does this sound sensible?

i had one on my Outback estate in the US and loved it!

my better than a trailer because then you can only drive 60mph the max.

you can pick them up used in AdTrader or gumtree this time of year, though.

sorry, IMO, they are great.

i had a used Yakima one i bought from someone who switched to a Thule.

"he somewhat sniffily told me that if the wind whistled through them then they hadn't been fitted properly"

ooh, get him!

Yes, that sounds like a plan, aitch. If you hire a box for a couple of goes do you get a discount if you buy one later?

NB our old car had proper roofrails which the roof bars were attached to - professionally mind you - & they still whistled! (Maybe whistled is the wrong word, maybe it was a whine or a thrum but whatever, it made a noise)

a noise will drive me nuts, i suspect, but at least having warned him i can at least go back to him and be horrified by it all.

VERY good question about the discount.

LMAO at slubs post. Just read it to DH and he says he could have written it LOL! We always have our best arguments when packing the roofbox and pitching the tent.

kbear did you see i'd thanked you for your response on the other thread, although we were pitching our tent when you wrote it? the argos tent is fine, isn't it, for starters?

although the bag it comes in is SHITE.

Ah, the whistle! En route to Skye, I finally had to ask DP to stop somewhere in the wild Highlands. And I could still hear the whistle...

Rent the roof box. Unless you live in a mansion and have lots of storage.

And please please don't put the roof box to the side. Every single roof box from Bristol to Skye that wasn't put in the middle, DP would comment...

aitch, didn't see but Thanks for your thanks anyway! Hope you had a good time.

we did, thanks (again).
put the thing to the side? you've lost me, with your technical campology-speak.

roof boxes are supposed to be in the middle. It makes DP absolutely crazy to see them situated off to the side on the roof rack.

Isn't campology church bell ringing

roof boxes are supposed to be in the middle. It makes DP absolutely crazy to see them situated off to the side on the roof rack.

Isn't campology church bell ringing

campanology

campology is knowledge of camping, obviously

I met THE QUEEN OF CAMPING on my camping trip last week, I was truly in AWE. She is worthy of a whole thread to herself but she might be a MNer so I haven't started one! Anyone at Mersea Island last week?????

tell me tell me. i want all the top tips. imagine me sitting cross-legged in front of you, drinking in all your knowledge...

(while watching a programme about humans who adopt monkeys, of course).

I have arrived on Mumsnet! People are laughing at me

i am laughing at the crazy monkey ladies...

We have a roof box and we are always lending it out. I think they are excellent.
It is very safe, I have driven at 90mph with it and it makes no difference to the handling of the car.
Absolutely no whistling.
The car was a VW Passatt estate, the roof box fitted onto the roof rails. I cannot remember what capacity it was but it was a large one not a single one that you see ifykwim.
The trick to packing is to pack a bit, shut the box and check, then pack some more and repeat. Do this all the way until you have fully packed the box.
Well worth the money in my opinion.

Our first set of Halfords own roof bars were great! They whistled, quite tunefully at about 40 miles an hour, getting higher and higher as speed went up until finally so high they went out of human frequency at about 80 mph. We drove Bristol to Weymouth trying to stay under 35 mph to stop the ghastly whistling, but occasionally when a straight appeared slamming foot on accelerator to try and get a few miles under our belt without the whistling.

The kids - age 2 & a baby at the time, were going CRAZY. Our fellow road-users thought we were insane.

On the way home we covered the entire car in insulating tape trying to stop the whistle. It didn't work.

When I took the bars back to Halfords they said there was a bit missing and they gave us a pair of Thule ones for nowt. They don't whistle - although they do make a bit of a fuss when you go too fast.

ah the old insultating tape trick, I was practically wrapped in the stuff myself by the time we drove 530 miles home from Glencoe. The bars that whistled for us all the way home were the ones that clamp in the door. OBVIOUSLY the farking doors don't shut properly, oh no say the manufacturer they will be fine. No they farking won't, don't be stupid.

The answer is never to buy a car that doesn't have roof rails (pines for lovely VW Passat Estate that DH made me sell cos it drank too much petrol).

my car has no roof rails - it makes me sad