Going on a Road Trip How to Carry Stuff on Your Cars Roof Securely

That isn't going anywhere.

Let's talk about what you're gonna use to strap down your gear on your car. We have ratchet straps, we have cam straps, and we have twine or rope. Let's talk about ratchet straps. Now ratchet straps are what you're gonna use for your heavier-duty gear, and they're gonna hold a lot of weight, and they're extremely easy to use. You have two parts to the ratchet strap. It just slides through here. And then it works just like a ratchet.

If you're securing stuff to your roof all the time, a ratchet strap is probably your best investment. When you're storing your ratchet straps, you wanna wrap them up like this. You could even take a rubber band, or even a tie wrap and put it around there. That's gonna keep it nice and neat when you're ready to use it. You don't want it all tangled up like this. And you definitely don't want any knots in the ratchet strap. It's gonna affect the integrity of the strap. And you don't want stuff breaking while you're on the road.

Now let's talk about cam straps. Now the difference between these and the ratchet straps is you can't put as much of a load on it, but they're very convenient. There's this little cam right here. That's what's going to hold the straps together. This cam strap has seen its days. It's been used a lot. I really like using cam straps, and you definitely want to wrap them up just like a ratchet strap. You have two pieces. This is why it's called a cam strap. You have a little cam right here that has teeth in it, and you just slide the other strap through here. Push this through there. And then you can tighten it up just like this by pulling it. So it pulls one direction, and it's not gonna pull [inaudible 00:02:05], so it will be nice and tight.

And to loosen it, you just push down on the cam and slide it out nice and easy. Again, just like the ratchet straps, make sure there's no knots in these. Rope or twine? Probably not the best option. Maybe use it as a last resort if you're tying down like a pool float, or maybe a Christmas tree. But other than that, don't use it. Now you know what we're going to use to tie the gear down. Let's see what sticks. Before you mount anything to the roof, you want to check your owner's manual and see what the load capacity is. Different vehicles are gonna be different, whether you have a roof rack system or not. So check that.

This vehicle is only 100 pounds, whereas the other one was 200. And if you have a car without a roof rack system, and it doesn't say anything in the owner's manual, you don't want to mount much more than a kayak or a mattress. Some vehicles have cross rails like these or just the roof rails. When you're mounting something that's fairly big, you probably want these as far apart as possible. If you're going on a trip and you have a lot of luggage, you wanna keep extra room inside the vehicle. Maybe you have a lot of people going with you. Whether you have a car or an SUV, one way to attach the luggage to the roof is with a rooftop bag.

If you have a sunroof, you wanna make sure you don't mount this on a sunroof. Or if you do, do not put a lot of weight in it. And if you have a vehicle with an antenna on it, and it's potentially in your way, you want to remove that antenna. Before you mount this, you definitely want to check out the instructions. All of these are a little bit different. For this vehicle, because it has crossbars, we wanna mount it in between the two crossbars and adjust accordingly.

For most of these bags, you need to have the zipper at the back of the vehicle or on the side. You don't want the zipper at the front. Just for the potential that there is rain, the zipper part is not quite as waterproof as the rest of the bag. Make sure your load is evenly dispersed. And then you can zip it up. Everything's in there. It's all zipped up. Now don't forget to strap it down. Follow directions per your cargo. And if you have side rails, you can attach it to the side rails. I like to do a little loop right here. Slide it through there, and then you can tighten it down. And then you're gonna do the same with the other one.

Now with the excess, you wanna tie this up, so that it's not flapping in the breeze. Let's throw this up there. We're gonna mount this kayak with the ratchet strap system. We're gonna take one side with the hook, go underneath the crossbar right here, and then carefully slide this over there. You don't wanna throw it too far. You might hit one of your windows, and we're gonna do the same with the back. Wow. I thought I was gonna hit a window. And throw the rest of the strap on the other side.

Before you strap it down, make sure the cargo is balanced pretty good, and not tipping too far back from the car, or too far forward. And now we'll go underneath this crossbar right here. This ratchet strap is probably a little too long for this, but that's okay. I'll hook these ends together, and then slide the strap through the ratchet.

Now, depending on what you're strapping down, you might want to put something to protect underneath where the hooks are or the ratchet part. So I'm just going to tighten it a little bit just to give you the idea. And when you're tightening down a kayak, you don't wanna tighten it down too much. You want it just enough so that it's not moving, but you don't wanna ruin the kayak. Now, if you didn't have crossbars, and you just had roof rails, I'll show you how to attach that. So you got your ratchet strap there. And when you're mounting this strap, you want to put a twist in it. And that's going to prevent noise because otherwise when you're going down the road, this is gonna flutter, and it'll be singing to you while you're going down the road.

If you put one twist in it, it's not gonna change the integrity of the strap, and it's gonna stop some of that wind noise. And slide this through the ratchet, and secure it down. To prevent the buckles from messing up the kayak, I'm just gonna use the pool noodle that I just cut. I'll just put that underneath there just to make sure that's secure.

Now you don't want any excess like this flapping around. It's gonna be making noise, or it could get into someone's tires. So let's tie this up. What you could do is take the excess, just slide it under here, and make sure it goes in the door, and just close the door. Or if you don't have that much, you could just tie it up. Just don't tie it up too tight. If you're going on a longer trip, you probably wanna have a strap going from the back of the kayak to a trailer hitch, and also from the front to the front of the car. But for what we're doing, the two straps are gonna be fine.

After you've driven around for a little bit, you wanna get out and double-check your straps to make sure everything is still tight. If it's loosened up, obviously tighten it up, and periodically throughout your trip, stop and double-check. And when you're done, you're ready to release it. This piece comes up and slides like that. And then this loosens up nice and easy.

And when strapping things down to a car without a roof rack, you're gonna go in through the doors. And the same rules pretty much apply. Have the straps as far forward as possible, and as far back. If you enjoyed this video, or it helped you out, make sure you subscribe to our channel. Ring the bell. Turn on all notifications, so you don't miss any of our videos.