Roof Rack/Roof Top Tent *Recommendations*

Hey yo! Not new here but don't get on often. Im just now getting around to doing any kind of mods to my Runner. Im looking to get more into overloading and road trip camping. Does anyone have a favorite roof rack that they would recommend to double up with a roof top tent? Or if anyone has an recommendations for a good roof top tent that would groovy too.

 

I have Victory 4X4 roof rack (full) and MIA tent.

 

Here’s the picture.

 

Another picture.

 

how much does that setup weigh roughly?

 

About 220 lbs....170 lbs for the tent and 50 lbs for the roof rack....so far, I don’t have any problem.

 

nice. That’s not bad at all. I am wanting to get something like that for mine so I can take the 4runner to more remote locations and leave my mini travel trailer at the RV park at certain places as a sort of base camp. Need it to be somewhat lightweight as my trailer is already 3400lbs dry.

 

Not my 4Runner but on my Tacoma I had the prinsu and rtt. Installing my front runner on the 4Runner this weekend and am still on the fence about the rtt. I built a trailer for it. But honestly my wife and are leaning more towards selling tent and trailer and going back to ground tent and buying a gazelle.

 

@newlife, pros and cons of rtt? I currently work from home and just got word that we will wfh indefinitely.... I would love to take this opportunity to pack up and travel while working in the road.

 

Pros off the ground. Camp is where you park. No sleeping on the rocks, ease of setup, and major Broverland points. Cons ladder, (climb up to sleep, climb down if you got to go to the bathroom half asleep, if a bigger animal comes into camp and nudges the ladder you could find yourself on the ground), have to pack up to go explore, added cog, a lot of added weight, storing options when off the truck.

 

We love our RoofNest and UpTopOverland setup. @newlife did a great job of pointing out the pros/cons.

 

following.

 

Victory 4x4 Rack with a Freespirit Recreation tent! Their tents are super fast to setup!

Victory Racks are 10% right now!

 

I hear good things about the Yakima version

 

I installed Yakima Jetstream bars with Timberline mounts. My RTT is a Tepui Ayer Exporer 2. It's top notch on quality and well thought out. I've slept in it numerous times, but I honestly would rather sleep in the rig now rather than dealing with installing the RTT and then setting it up and taking down for a weekend trip, especially if I'm going to be driving around while camping. In my opinion, if it's just you, or maybe you and a small dog, a 2 person RTT is fine. If it's more than that, I'd get at least a 3 person RTT.

 

@Sixgunz, just took a look and the bars are pretty reasonably priced. Might go with those. Im kinda leaning more towards the hard top RTT only because its quick and easy set up and take down and Im 5'5" *not that tall*. I don't really have plans on taking it off the 4R because I plan to be doing this for the extension of this COVID mess.

 

Got the front runner installed. Here’s a shot incase this helps. (Does require drilling just a heads up)

 

@newlife, how do you like it so far? Any noise any drawbacks yet?

 

it’s good now however .......

I won’t lie. Coming home it was a nightmare. It sounded like I was going over the rumble strips at 100 mph upside down on the roof with a deer horn blaring at top decibels. BUT I didn’t have the wind deflector on. I got home and added it to the second slat since that’s where my light bar is going on the first one. No dice. I did multiple back and forth at highway speeds. Once I moved it to the very front bar it was quiet. Now at highway speeds with strong side wind I can hear a little and opening the sunroof fully it’s definitely louder than before but not too bad. I would still do it knowing what I know now simply because of ease of adding accessories. Even more so than the prinsu and victory. I had the prinsu on my Tacoma and while it is very modular I still had to buy extra items to mount my recovery tracks. And drill odd spacing holes for the Plano case etc. with the front runner everything I have so far just fits perfectly. I have a custom mount that my gazelle t4 will go on for the front runner as well.

 

I've got the UpTOP Overland Bravo rack with the 38" Extreme LED cut out and added BD scene pods in the rear cut outs. Had to move the forward cross bar farther forward to limit the wind noise but since I installed the light bar, there's been no issues. Only draw back with this roof rack is it's new; added accessories are limited right now so you have to adapt/modify other available accessories in order to fit. Not that big of deal just time consuming with trial and error. Love the width though; you can really take advantage of cargo space up top.

Here's the pick without the 38" Extreme LED light bar. 23ZERO RTT on back order

 

When you decide on a roof top tent, you'll have to think about these (and likely more) points to make a decision for yourself:

• How high can your vehicle get? Does it have to fit into a garage? This might limit your options significantly. We didn't mind all too much, since we don't have a garage for the 4Runner.
• On that note, do you plan to leave it on most of the time? If not, where and how can you store it? That might be easier for a lighter and or thinner tent.
  
• How large do you need the sleeping area to be? For two people, we figured, we can live with 130cm width at the shoulders. But this is personal and depends on your own measurements as well as your sleeping position. Length can also be a concern if you and/or your partner are tall. Some tents are short when you need a certain height at the foot end.
  
• Do you need/want super quick setup? Then you either have to budget a more expensive tent or look at the CVT Super Light. The problem with that one is that it has zero "other goodies". The more expensive options are generally hard shell tents and set up / break down in about a minute or two.
  
• Are you okay with a single entry/exit or do you need multiple? This might limit your choice.
  
• Are you okay to carry a ladder in the vehicle or should/must it stay in the tent when packed up? I'm not aware of any of the wedge style tents that can store more than a super thin sleeping bag when closed.
  
• Are you okay with a ladder being a load bearing element of the tent, which COULD get knocked by people or a large animal?
  
• Depending on how your sleeping arrangement is and how many people sleep in the tent, are you okay climbing over each other to get out during the night? Otherwise, can you have/add a second ladder? We picked one with the entrance at the "foot" end of the tent.
  
• Do you need awnings over windows/entrance? If it rains and you don't have these, you are limited in where you can enter/exit as well as vent since rain will get inside when there is no awning or rain cover. A lot of the "wedge style" tents have only a single awning over the rear window/entrance, which might or might not be easy to access for you, depending on whether you have a hatch ladder.
  
• What kind of rack system do you plan on using? Make sure you can easily mount a tent to it. I planned to put a Rhino backbone on and use just three crossbars for the tent, but that plan was nixed, since the iKamper Skycamp Mini is too short to go over all three rails. I've re-planned for differently placed crossbars now. The Rhino Pioneer platform is "very suboptimal" for mounting a tent since the slats run along the length of the vehicle, which basically screws with EVERY tent out there. Plus you might not be able to reach far enough under it to tighten the mounts. That will then require either drilling or other shenanigans to get the tent mounted.
  
• Do you need other "stuff" on the roof rack while the tent is mounted? Maxtrax boards, shovel, etc? Make sure this stuff still fits when the tent is mounted.
  
• How much weight are you willing to accept? If you are going to install/remove regularly, be aware that most tents are HEAVY and therefore require either a lift or multiple people to put it on the rack. Tent we picked is 57kg, one of the lighter ones.
  
• Are you okay rocking side to side when the vehicle moves in the suspension due to someone turning or wind? We prefer that rocking motion to not be side to side but head to toe. So, we want to sleep perpendicular to the length of the vehicle.

Personally, we decided on an iKamper Skycamp Mini after thinking through and ranking these questions (and some more). It might need some "optimizations" over time, but it started with the smallest number of compromises for us.

So, don't go by a simple recommendation saying "I use this", make up your mind on what you actually want from a tent, pick some that fit the bill, then consider what others are saying about these, then decide.

 

All above what he said is 100% accurate. I think that’s the reason I am selling my rtt is I didn’t do the research enough. That being said. If I were going rack to rtt after now having the prinsu style (same as victory, southern style, Greenlane , etc) and the front runner. It would be hands down the front runner. The fact they even have tent mounting let’s is huge and how much room is under the rack to get your arm in and turn a wrench even better. I will say we came up with a way to install and un install the tent easier on the prinsu but it required buying to extra load bars and once we got the tent on the two load bars they came with those bars were permanently on the tent until I sold the truck.

 

That's one of the the reasons I didn't buy a Victory 4x4 rack, which I had my eye on already. The other is the mounting with silicone which is just silly.

 

I picked mine up at a REI Garage sale for around $575...I doubt it had been slept in more than once or twice. It weighs around 100 lbs and with my style of roof bars, taking it on and off isn't that bad regarding access to the bolts. I haven't tried any other brands or types of RTTs. I have enough room on my bars to mount a hi-lift jack next to the RTT, but nothing else will fit after that.

 

Thanks Dad!

But hey, in all honesty, I didnt even think about any of the things on this list. And Im glad you brought all fo this up. Gonna take a few days to read over this and see what I come up with. Thank you.

 

I cant recommend a RTT as I have not purchased one yet but I have been happy with my Gobi rack so far. They are not cheap and probably still have long wait times.

 

Wait times are outrageously long. At least four months is what they are SAYING now. I'm going with an estimate of six to nine months.

 

Yeah I waited 4-5 months for mine about a year ago. It is a quality product and their customer service is great as well, they installed it for free as I am local to them.

 

Glad a poster above mentioned being able to get your arm between rack and roof to wrench.
I should have a Bajarack Utility mesh with sun roof cut out this month sometime and have been looking at
the GoFastCamper Ultralight....but how to attach to the Bajarack, that's the question.

 

When I installed my roof top tent, I squeezed my arm in there to get the self-locking nut on and then used a ratcheting wrench similar to this one:

$22 Wera - 5073273001 4013288164377 Ratcheting combination wrench Joker 13x177mm, MULTI

https://www.amazon.com/Wera-05073273001-Ratcheting-Combination-13x177mm/dp/B007HIE54U

It was quite a bit of work, but I got it done.