Turtle tops

[Deafmedic]

I'm checking into those new nylon/canvas covers for the vehicle roofs. Does anyone have any experiences with them? Are they better than the hard turtle tops?

 

[Deafmedic]

Kinda hard to believe that we have all these traveler's and none of them will respond.

 

[southernlove]

Well, if you're talking about the "soft" roof top carriers versus the hard plastic ones, I can give you my opinion.

We started out with a soft carrier that we could easily roll up for storage in our basement when not in use. We used it ONE time. The noise was deafening - like hail beating down on the roof!!

For our next long distance trip, we did not want to use it because of the noise and also the hassle of getting it firmly attached up top. (It had straps that you had to wrap around the roof rails and tighten.) We ended up leaving stuff at home and cramming the rest into our van.

After that, we bought a hard carrier from Sears and have been very, very pleased with it. The only down side that I can see is it does take up more room when being stored in our garage.

 

[Padre Disney]

We have one canvas and one vinyl. Yes TWO. We have four kids and drive our suburban on one or two road trips every year. Every year for 5 years we drove 21 straight hours straight through from the midwest to south padre Island. We needed the carriers because we had no room on the inside for our luggage. I can't tell you how many carriers we saw on top of cars that looked like they could fly off at any moment (from people only used the straps that came with the carriers) and how many toppers from the hard carriers that had been ripped off from strong winds.


Every time we load our luggage carriers on top we put on those bright red ratchet straps and lock them down. We learned not to run the straps from side to side because of the wind noise. But when you run the straps from front to back they are quiet. I would never leave home without our carriers. Do make sure you find one that is at least somewhat water proof. One of ours says it is waterproof and the other is water resistant. Doesn't make much difference. If you hit ran the clothes get wet on either one. If we think we are going to have any chance of ran during our drive we buy cheap extra large garbage bags and bag each piece of luggage for extra protection. Takes a few extra minutes but it keeps the clothes dry.


So our experience with them has been great. Would recommend using the rachet starps for extra protection and the garbage bags if you might hit rain. They really save so much room on the inside.