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Aerodynamic, aluminum crossbars let you build an aftermarket roof rack for your vehicle. Full-length bars provide plenty of space for carriers and accessories. Vortex strips in C-channels reduce wind noise. Theft-deterring plastic locks included.
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Rhino-Rack Vortex Aero Crossbars - Black - Qty 2:Videos are provided as a guide only. Refer to manufacturer installation instructions and specs for complete information.
Hi, everyone. Aiden here with etrailer. Today, we're gonna be taking a look at and showing you how to install this Rhino Rack Roof Rack System on our 2022 Jeep Grand Cherokee L. A roof rack is a really solid option for expanding your cargo space where if you wanna put a basket or a box on top of your vehicle to get some extra cargo in there or maybe you wanna get some larger items like a roof-mounted bike rack or a kayak carrier, it's a great way to get some of the extra stuff with you that you maybe don't have space for inside your vehicle. Maybe you've got that third row seats up and you've got passengers in the back and your cargo space is a little bit limited, this is a great place to go because the roof is very large and the roof rack is a really solid one too. And the reason it's so solid is because it mounts directly to the vehicle.
Rather than using something like clamps or wraparound bars, it's going to bolt directly into these raised rails on your roof. So it creates a really solid contact and it's probably my favorite way of attaching a roof rack because for one, you've got fixed mounting points. It makes the install really easy. But two, it's just a lot more stable and I trust it a lot more going down the road. Because these have fixed mounting points, you do wanna keep in mind your crossbar spread.
It's gonna be important when picking out our accessories. So from the center of one bar to the center of the other, it's gonna be 27 and one quarter of an inch. So when you're picking out different rooftop accessories, a lot of them are gonna have a range of crossbar spreads that they'll work with, whether it's a box that has adjustable clamps or a basket that only has so much room for those clamps to go apart. You wanna make sure that whatever you're picking out can work with that crossbar spread because these can't be moved. Some other measurements to keep in mind are gonna be the 49-inch length of the crossbars themselves.
They don't have a whole lot of overhang off the sides. So for something like a load-assist kayak carrier, it probably wouldn't work super well with this kit and you'd probably need to upgrade to longer bars because with those load-assist carriers, you need a little bit of overhang on your crossbars to get that load assist system far enough away from the side of your vehicle. But with the kit that it comes with, I think it's a pretty solid fit and it gives you a little bit of overhang the play with for certain accessories. As far as how tall it sticks up on top of your roof, from the roof to the top of the bar, it's gonna be four and a half inches. Now, from the roof to the bottom of the bar, that's gonna be two and 3/4 of an inch.
So that leaves plenty of room underneath for clamp-around accessories because if you do have a clamp-around accessory, especially one that has like a hand knob on the bottom, you need room for that so it doesn't hit your roof and so you can get your hand in there to tighten it down. But for this, it's a pretty good option, it leaves enough space, and it doesn't stick up too tall either. On top of the crossbars, there's a T-track system. So if you wanted to remove this rubber stripping, take off the end cap and slide your accessories into the slotted hole on the top of the bar, you can. The only thing I'd keep in mind is that Rhino Rack's method of doing this is probably my least favorite because you have to peel back the different sections of weather stripping and cut it to length to accommodate those or just remove it entirely, which is gonna create a lot of wind noise. Something like a Yakima bar would work a lot better because you don't have to cut that weather stripping to length. You can just slide into your accessory and it'll conform around that T bolt. To access that T-track, it uses a special tool that you get with your Rhino Rack kit. So that's gonna keep it protected if you do use a T-track accessory. And for the towers underneath, you're gonna have a key to lock that cover up. That cover is what secures our mounting bolt inside so that keeps the roof rack locked to your roof. The only other thing you need to consider is the weight capacity. The whole system can support 165 pounds and that's just, it's moving weight. So whenever you've got it loaded up driving down the road, your load must not exceed 165 pounds, which is pretty on par with most of our roof racks. Just keep in mind that if you throw a box on top of the roof, you have to factor in that weight as well. So if it's a 40-pound box, subtract that 40 pounds from the total roof rack weight capacity and go from there. And that's all there is to it for the Rhino Rack Roof Rack system on top of our Jeep Grand Cherokee L. Overall, I think it's a really solid system. It fits well, the install process is very straightforward, and in general, I'm just a big fan of Rhino Rack's Roof Racks. I think it looks really good on top of the Jeep here and I've been using them personally on my own vehicle for a long time now and they've always worked really well for me, so I trust it going down the road. Like I mentioned before, that install process is very easy. So let's jump up to the roof and get that started now. The install process is gonna be really straightforward. Up on the roof, there's gonna be a few fixed mounting points that we're gonna utilize for our installation. You can find them by just looking on the inside of your rails and there's gonna be these two plastic caps that are next to each other. That's one point. There's gonna be point at the front, middle, and rear of these rails. We're gonna be focusing on the middle and the front one for our crossbars. I've already got the middle one installed, and we're gonna be taking these plastic caps off of each of those mounting holes for the front together. So you can use a flat blade screwdriver for this, but I prefer a plastic trim tool just because then it's going to be plastic on plastic rather than having metal on plastic and potentially damaging some of these components. With those removed, we're gonna turn our attention to the fit kit. This is gonna be the box that comes with four metal plates, four of these rubber sleeves, and then all of your hardware. Each of these metal plates is going to have an L or an R on them. L for driver's side, R for passenger side. And then all of those rubber sleeves are gonna be exact same. There's four tabs that will line up with tabs on the top of our plate. So we just wanna nest these two together, kind of getting that metal plate underneath the lip and getting those tabs to pop through the top. They can be a bit stubborn, but once you get those pop through, the two will be joined together. To secure this piece of the rails, turn our attention to the Allen bolts that are included in our kit, slide on a lock washer and a flat washer, and we'll do two of these for each of our plates. Getting that lined up with the threaded holes on the rail and just starting them by hand. Now, I've got a towel laid down for all of this just to make sure none of these metal components end up falling and scratching our roof up and it just helps keep everything straight and from rolling around. Once they're both loosely installed, we can take our included Allen key and tighten them down fully. Back down on the ground, we can get our crossbar assembled. The crossbar itself is going to house our towers. Now, with these, we're gonna have a block with a bolt on the bottom. We want this nice and loose right now because what we'll do is come to the end of our bar on the bottom side of it and slide that bolt or that block into the track underneath to lock it in place, but still loose enough to move around. We then want to get the right positioning. This measurement can be found in your instructions or by measuring from the center of one mounting location on the fit kit to the center of the other. And I'm just going to measure for ours from the mounting locations on the towers. And after I get that measurement where I want it, I wanna make sure everything is also centered up so that we have even crossbar spread on either side. That's gonna be the overhang on either side just so it looks nice and even. And once I'm happy with that, I can take that same included Allen Key that we used earlier, come right over to those feet, and tighten up that bolt underneath. That will snug down that block inside the track and immobilize the tower. Just like that. Then we can repeat that for the other tower. We can take the whole crossbar assembly up to the roof with everything tightened down, and just set it on top of the fit kit. If you measured everything right, it should just slot right in. We can go back down to the ground, grab our remaining hardware, and secure it right in there into the threaded holes on the fit kit. That remaining hardware will be a 10-millimeter bolt, lock washer and flat washer, and it's gonna be kind of tough to get it in there at first by hand just because you do have limited space for your fingers, but start it by hand and run it down the rest of the way with a 10 millimeter wrench that isn't included in the kit. So you will need to go and grab your own. A ratcheting one makes this a lot easier because now we can just run it down. With everything tightened down, you can secure your end caps. So you can use the key and the cap for the towers to secure that mounting bolt so no one can mess with it when you're not around. And then use the special tool from Rhino Rack to secure the end caps on your crossbar and secure up that T track inside. After that, you're good to go. And that'll do it for our look at the Rhino Rack Roof Rack System on our 2022 Jeep Grand Cherokee L.
Average Customer Rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars (186 Customer Reviews)
Aerodynamic, aluminum crossbars let you build an aftermarket roof rack for your vehicle. Full-length bars provide plenty of space for carriers and accessories. Vortex strips in C-channels reduce wind noise. Theft-deterring plastic locks included.Great addition to the bed track of my 2022 Hyundai Santa Cruz! I got these for my rhino rack rod holder since they made such noise on the oem roof rack. So happy I went with rhino rack. You can't beat the price and the quality is as good if not better than Thule or Yakima. Highly reccomend.
The selection process that etrailer uses is top-notch. This really helped narrow down the choices for my 2019 RAM Quad cab. I bought this all kitted together. The assembly process is very straightforward and well-documented. I would highly recommend etrailer as a source for vehicle accessories. I have Yakima bike racks on our Subaru and this is as good if not better.
Great bars. It's my second pair. Both on jeep Grand cherokee. The pair I put on my 2015 overland didn't whistle at all. This pair I put on my 2020 trailhawk whistled starting at 20mph and changed pitch throughout the acceleration process and while causing. I bought a fairing and the problem is solved. At least for now. I put the fairing on wit the label in. Looks better and Rhino Rack isn't paying me to advertise. The fairing they recommended seemed small but works so go with whatever they recommend.
Service from ETrailer was excellent. Personal and very helpful service (kudos to Michele S.) . Prompt shipping and items exactly as described. The installation videos on their website were helpful but I still needed to follow the written instructions. Without hurrying it took me about an hour and a half to assemble and install the rack on my Tundra. It fit very well and feels very secure. Still need to take it out onto the road. If anything bad shows up I'll post an updated review but I really don't expect any problems. I've used racks like these before (not from Rhino) and this looks like a pretty solid piece of equipment.
These aero crossbars compliment the other accessories I've rated previously. It all cam together to be a great roof rack for my new Nissan NV200. The crossbars are oversize to accommodate my Thule Hulavator kayak racks.
The instructions and how-to videos on etrailer helped me do it myself. Thanks.
I have been using etrailer for many years and have never had a bad purchase. We are about to start traveling quite a bit with our 5th wheel. Putting our kayaks on the back of the trailer was not an option. I researched several roof top carriers and this package was by far the best value and quality. The Rhino rack is awesome, works extremely well with kayak "J" carriers and installed relatively easy. There was an issue with the measurements for the underside channel covers. For my Ram, they were short. But I always use the old adage of measure 2, 3 or 4 times. Cut once. Saved me a few problems here. As alway7s with etrailer, we are very pleased with the product, the serv ice and the information before purchasing.
I purchased two Vortex Aero crossbars as part of a complete roof rack system for my kayak. My vehicle is a 2013 Ford F-150 FX4 with sunroof. The sunroof is no problem with the Rhino Rack 2500 system
I am very pleased with the Rhino Rack 2500 system. It is very strong, easily handling my 42 lb kayak, which is 19’ long.
I recommend mounting the kayak carriers to their final position on the crossbars prior to cutting the plastic strips. The plastic strips prevent wind from causing whistling noises at highway speeds. These plastic strips can be inserted into the tracks on the top side of the crossbars with the kayak carriers premounted. Simply cut the strips to filt all empty track sections and carefully press the plastic strips into their respective track sections. Note that the bottom side of the crossbars also have tracks. The empty track spaces on the bottom side use a different type of plastic strip. The bottom plastic strips look like a plastic ruler, with graduations in millimeters. This is described in the user direction guide. It took me a while to figure that out!
My crossbars do not whistle at all at any speed up to the max I have tried at 75MPH.
Just what I was looking for for my 2021 MB Metris Cargo Van with Raised Rails, for hauling a 14-foot SUP. I wanted as low profile as possible and the Rhino Rack SX Series Legs and Aero Crossbars looked best. Relatively easy to set up.
The only complaint I have about the crossbars is that it causes a high pitch sound. I've been meaning to contact you about a possible solution. Pls advise.
Other than that they are just fine.
Have used the roof rack on our Ford F350 to carry 2 kayaks while towing our 5th wheel. It has worked well and allowed us to bring our kayaks with us while we RV around the country.
Worked well. Some time to install but worked well for my lightweight canoe.
Well built. Just not a good fit for my f150 roof. It makes a lot of vibrating noise in the cab from wind. I got them for the snowboard rack and for 16 ft canoe. Hope this helps anyone who is planning on using them for similar uses. Maybe look for something else.
Worked great for our 12 ft kayaks. No issues after 16,000 mile trip with high speeds, adverse weather, and high crosswinds.
This kit provided everything I needed to install on my 2011 Ford Flex. Instructions were on point and very easy to understand. Very sturdy roof rack and looks great. Thanks etrailer.com for the awesome kit! Very happy!
Ordering was very easy, as was the installation, the directions are very easy to follow. This will make for an easy way to carry kayaks while pulling the fifth wheel. Very solid rack.
Great build, easy install, and more importantly, easy uninstall. Flexible for various needs.
The Rhino Rack BLOCKS my SUNROOF. It was recommended for my 2018 Highlander on the etrailer website. A 2018 Highlander with a sunroof is shown on etrailer in the install video. However, I can not open my sunroof. etrailer refuses to refund or exchange it and have no options for fixing this issue!
Great addition to my roof rack. Super strong and sturdy.
I just finished the install of the Rhino Rack 2500 with the Vortex Bars. It looks fantastic on my 2020 Silverado. It's solid and very well built. I'm a surfcaster on Long Island and I use 1 piece fishing rods up to 11ft long so the easiest and best way to transport them is on top of my vehicle. I selected this rack because it's aerodynamic and with the accessory channel I was able to easily attach them by sliding a 1inch stainless bolt and stainless washer in the channel. This hides the attachment and makes it impossible to remove unless you have the keys to access my rod rack which has a padlock.
Bought all parts for complete Rhino Rack roof rack for my 2022 Kia Soul Turbo. I got the 46" Vortex Aero Crossbars that were originally suggested on the etrailer website instead of the 54" listed on the RR website. The 46" bars work the best for me. The 54" would be wider than the car. All parts are well engineered. Other reviews have been critical of the finish on the bars as being easy to scratch. I think that is one area where the quality could be improved. Installation was a little more involved than I anticipated but still a doable DIY. I think the RCL leg system is probably the most challenging to install. I have ordered quit a few items from etrailer, and as previously experienced, all etrailer staff that I interacted with were very friendly, helpful and professional.
Works great use the rack to haul Kayaks.
TLDR: It's a good product with (literal) strength, and some weaknesses. Its cheaper than the competitors, and its in stock now. I mainly bought this due to inventory issues from the other main competitors. That it costs about 100 bucks less is nice, but the reasons for the cost difference is noticeable if you've ever used Thule or Yakima products before.
Installation was not more or less irritating than any other roof rack (I've installed MANY over the years).
Materials are similar, but the plastic parts feel cheaper than Thule or Yakima, and they towers have exposed innards on the inside faces that make it look cheap, and may create more noise. The fit kit feet are good, but the hooks are 2 pieces pinned together instead of formed and cut to custom lengths. This makes them bulkier than the competition.
Apparently they are rated for 33% more weight than the others, and that's cool if you need to haul heavy stuff on top.
All said, I'd probably buy their stuff again in a pinch, or if I was trying to save money, but for fit and finish I would go with Thule or Yakima
My Rhino Rack RCL Roof Rack was installed one year ago on a 2014 Honda CRV (fixed rails). It whistles very loudly. In fact, if I use my bluetooth to talk on the phone, everyone asks what the loud whistling is. If my moonroof is opened about a third of the way, the turbulence is diverted and the whistling stops. However, that obviously is not practical in cold weather. I'm disappointed because my understanding is that there was not supposed to be too much noise with these crossbars.
Proper fit on our 2023 cx-5
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