I'm shortly going camping for the first time with the new car, but where due to passengers I can't put anything on the back seats. From a test pack it's clear I'm going to need a roof box but I'm dithering on what size - I don't want to go too big as it'll take up space stored, and I'd like to do a reasonable clip on continental roads.
I don't think I need a huge amount of space, so I'm trying to decide between 300L and 400L. Obviously I'm not planning to overload either the box or my car roof weight limit.
In real terms what do you get into a 300L and 400L box?
We have a 320l box with 3 of us in the car. It fitted Thermarests, sleeping bags, pillows etc and nearly all our clothes for two weeks in France/Spain in summer.
There's some useful advice about loading etc in this thread. It knocked our fuel consumption back by about 10%.
We get all the lightweight stuff into our Kamei Dolphin 380lt RoofBox.
The Kamei is what they call a full width box, which was important to me as I needed a box that would keep the cars height to no more than 2m, so that we could whiz through the 2m peage autoroute bays, and also avoid accidentally being charged class 2.
The current height is 1.95m so we got into most car parks as well when we were in France earlier this month.
What made me choose the Kamei was it's double securing system for the lid, it has two key lock's, and two lid locators, which kinda gives peace of mind that the lid is not going to pop open, whilst you are doing 81mph along the autoroute's.
Although getting the lid open is a two handed job, but worth it for how well the lid is retained.
Got the Kamei back in 2008 from the roof box co, using the members discount code on here.
I think 410 litres is still where I'm looking then.
T-Bars - come what may I'm probably going to get the Thule Wingbars which have the T-bar connection. Are there benefits to that system?
It looks to me like they'll be a touch more aerodynamic, so perhaps less fuel use/noise - is that correct and is it tangible?
The box I'm looking at right now is the Hapro Traxer 6.6 which from the videos looks like it's really easy to fit anyway so I'm not sure there's any benefit on that front, but I'm open to the idea of it.
I've had sqaure bars on a couple of cars and now have T track bars (in my case Whispbar, simialr to the Thule Wingbars)
I think they are quieter than the sqaure bars, I never seem to get whislting, which did sometimes happen with the other bars (but then who knows, different cars as well) As to fuel consumption, I couldn't say. Taking off my bars doesn't seem to make any obvious difference to consumption.
I think there are soem benfits to the T tracks system in terms of fiting the box. One apdapter to get through a hole rather than fiddlign with a typical round the bar clamp (though for bike carriers it makes little different I think) No epserince of the Hapro fixing though.
I love our Kamie Covara 290 boxes fixing system though. It has a built in clamp system that fits into the T track slot. Put on the roof, slide them if neccessary to fit in the slot, pull a lever inside to clamp. It means I take off my box more often than the old one. A pretty expensive box though (Mine was an retrun from Roofbox Co. and so cheaper.
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Topic: Roof box - what size?
