CargoSmart Cargo Bag for Hitch Mounted Carrier - Water Resistant - 13 cu ft

Video Transcript for CargoSmart Hitch Mounted Carrier Cargo Bag Review

Zach: Hey guys, Zach here at etrailer.com and today we're going to be taking a look at the CargoSmart cargo carrier bag for hitch cargo carriers. This is going to be a really good way to keep your stuff protected whenever you're putting stuff in the cargo carrier. A lot of the times you're going to throw stuff back there. That's usually, you just don't care if it gets wet or dirty, stuff you didn't want on the inside of the vehicle. But a lot of the times you're going to want to carry extra stuff that you maybe do care about. Whether it's gear for a vacation or sports equipment.

And these cargo carrier bags are an excellent way to keep your stuff protected. Now, this one is going to be 13 cubic feet. It's not the biggest bag in the world that we offer, but it's not the smallest either.And I like that it fits in this cargo carrier. This one's going to be a 24 by 60 cargo carrier. It fits in there with plenty of space on each side.

A benefit of having a cargo carrier bag is you're not confined to just a certain dimensions of items. So I have some boxes and some stuffing in here just to give you an idea as to the size of this. But if you had suitcases that didn't quite line up, you can see with the soft sides that allows them to push out a little bit. It comes in. If you had a cargo box on the back end or trying to put that much stuff on a rooftop box, not only are those expensive, but the hard lines really limit you on the size of items you can put in there.

Now, when we max out this bag, its dimensions are going to be 20 inches tall by 21 inches wide by 54 inches in length.So even though it does offer you a lot of flexibility over those boxes, it definitely does have its limitations. Now, if you're looking to put your stuff in a bag, you care about it and keeping it dry is probably the most important part, keeping dust and dirt while you're going down the road is equally important. But for me, I want my stuff to stay dry. And a lot of customers are saying that they've driven through rainstorms with this and their stuff has been dry when they've gotten it out. Now, this isn't completely waterproof.

You can't submerge it. It's made of a water resistant vinyl and it's pretty durable, I think.I think if you got something that was sharp or had like a really harsh coroner on it, you may run into some issues or if you drag it around in your driveway for an extended period of time, you might scar it up a little. But I don't think that, that's going to have any issues. And the way that it really keeps itself down is with this hook and loop fasteners all the way around. You can see that flap does a really good job of covering up that zipper. Now, one thing with that zipper is it is a little weird. I'm going to undo these straps to show you. It's not my favorite design in the world.The zipper itself is fine. I think it's good enough. It's not the best zipper in the world, but I don't think it's going to have any issues. I mean, it goes smoothly. Maybe not super heavy duty, but I mean, it's just a bag. So you don't need anything crazy on there, but you can see this side goes all the way. It's about right there. And over here on what we would call our passenger side, it only goes through right here. I personally wish that it would go over here so we could have it completely open, but maybe this makes it easier. I don't really think so.So that's just kind of one thing. I have a slight issue with the bag. It's just the way that it opens up and closes. Now, if you're looking for something that's a little bit larger than this, let's say you do have a cargo carrier, that's a little bit bigger. etrailer offers a cargo carrier bag that's 20 cubic feet. And I personally use that one and that one works great. It's going to have a lot of the same features. It's just a little bit bigger. So if you have the need to carry a few more things than the 13 cubic feet, that's a really solid option too.Another thing that's included with this are these nylon straps. So it's going to come with three total and you run each one across on one on each side and one in the middle. And it's held in place right here by these loops. And it has good seams on there. I think the bag has good seams all the way around, but right there, that's going to hold it in place and you just run it down one side and connect it to your cargo carrier. And then you run the other side to the opposite side. And then what we do here is we can run this strap underneath our cargo carrier, like that, feed it through that top slot. And then we can just feed it through the bottom slotAnd we can just cinch it down and then we can clean this up a little bit. So I like this one because it has just three straps that do the same job as six. A lot of bags will have six that you run three down each side. And it's just I don't know, this design's just as effective with three less straps, you have to worry about. So this'll do a pretty good job of holding it in place.You can use some cam buckle or some ratchet straps. If you feel like your gears heavy, or you just want to be a little bit redundant with your straps, that's never going to harm anything. But overall, I think this bag is really nice. I was kind of surprised with it. It's a little small for me, but if I was not needing the larger capacity, I think this is going to be a good bag, especially if you're just looking to use it a few times a year for vacations or looking to move some sport's equipment. Stuff you just don't want to get dirty or wet. I think it's going to do a really good job for you. One thing to keep in mind, we don't have this issue on this truck today, but if your cargo carrier sits a little too close to your exhaust, you may run into the issue of causing some heat damage to this, that vinyl material may not hold up to those high temperatures. If it's sitting too close, that's going to do it for our look at the CargoSmart hitch cargo carrier bag.