Thule Force XT Sport Flaws 

Thanks for the comment! All these top end boxes are fully adjustable. The Yakima one is as well (no daylight showing though) If you don’t mind having to tape up or use caulking on your $500 cargo box to keep out the elements this would be a great option! 👍 I will say I didn’t have to do any of that to my Yakima box that lives on top of my car though and I simply get an air compressor and blast the dust out of it once every 6 months. So maybe caulk and tape it or blast it out every few months... To each their own! Buy whatever suits you. I am putting this review up so others can see that this system does not keep water out on its own. You have obviously seen this first hand because you’ve decided to tape or use caulking to keep it sealed up. Buying and making immediate repairs is personally not the avenue I like to go when purchasing brand new expensive gear. Thanks for you suggestions and the comment though. If I lived in a drier area I’d still have this thing on top of my car! P.s: Does it not blow your mind that every other Thule box is fully adjustable, has the same clamp systems to mount them, but has engineered a MUCH BETTER design to keep water out at all levels of adjustment? This is the only box they sell that could potentially prove to be an issue with leaking. 🤷‍♂️ Just sayin’

Glad you found this helpful! As far as I could tell it was only the Thule Force XT mode in their cargo box line that has this terrible design flaw. I’d recommend the Yakima Skybox 12 Carbonite any day! I’ve had mine for about a year now and it barely shows wear inside and out, and no water!

Benjamin Adams I was looking at Yakima Skybox 12 or Thule Force XT Sport. I need room on top of my roof for my bike or kayak along with the cargo box. The reason I chose the Thule was because of their Quick Grip clamps. Super easy to install and remove from the rack of the car. This along with a lot of positive feedback from the Thule line of cargo boxes are what made my mind up. Yes it easy to install, but is it worth the money? NO. THIS BOX IS NOT WORTH $200, LET ALONE $500. It literally has slots cut out on the bottom that water channels into. It is basically designed to allow water into the box where it gathers in inch deep pockets in the four corners of the box. Totally pointless to own something like this that you’re going to be loading gear into knowing it gathers water at the rate it does. Although this is the only Thule box with this design, that’s right only the Force XT has this design for God only knows what reason, I’d still go for another product. After owning the Force XT Sport for a week I returned it for a Yakima Skybox 12 Carbonite. I could not be happier with the Skybox. Go for the Skybox or another brand but please do not buy a Thule Force XT Sport. No one wants to find water in their cargo box to the capacity that the Force XT allows. Although the Skybox lets in a very small amount of water, a few drops compared to the four large puddles I found in the XT Sport, it still beats the brakes off of the XT Sport, hands down. There is actually no competition between these two boxes. The Skybox wins every time.

@@TheJonesBilly Thank you so much for this video and especially this comment. Extremely helpful in determining which cargo box I'll be going with next month.

Hey there! I did a pretty thorough clean since I planned to return it. I chose to return it because I believe that my money should go further than something that provides this amount of protection. Rather than fixing something brand new that is made with flaws. And I was right. The Yakima Skybox 12 provides much better weather protection, more space, and at right about the same price. Seemed like a no brainer to me.

@@TheJonesBilly Eh, to each his own I guess. Personally I've never been a big fan of Yakima because their racks look flimsy and just don't look as good on my car as Thule. On the other hand, Thule is beginning to monopolize the industry so maybe it's good to support their competitors.

@@PatrickPierceBateman I couldn’t agree more. The aesthetics of the Thule are what made me buy it first. But the functionality of the Yakima is what I needed. To each their own!

Lol I’m glad it wasn’t an issue for you! I had water in there after 10 minutes of driving through heavy rain. Don’t know if you experienced much of that on your trip but whatever works for you, keep with it!

I bought my Yakima Skybox and it works so well after 2 years+! Not a drop of water inside, works perfectly in all other regards. As a matter of fact, I love it so much I stopped going on RU-vid to look up videos on what other people thought about it 😉

Bryan Marsh thanks for the reply! i completely agree that getting any amount of the outside elements into a cargo box that sits on top of the car, presumably to keep things safe, is ridiculous. I don’t know about you but when I store things for traveling I don’t. want to have to worry about 1/4 gallon of water possibly coming inside after a 10 minute drive through the rain. As for the car, I own a Jeep Patriot, but it can’t have anything to do with the vehicle because it fastens to of a set of Yakima crossbars (incredibly common). It’s a boxy hatchback but if it doesn’t work with this car it wont work for any car. The problem does not lie with the car, it lies with the huge gaps on the bottom of the cargo box that become fully exposed when you adjust the clamps to fit on your crossbars. When you adjust those clamps, they move on rails. Those rails slide forward and backwards in the box for adjustability, but the slides themselves stick out of the box and are not inside. This adjustability for the slides leaves large openings which is what I presumed let in a fair bit of water after a very short drive. My suggestion: Never buy this particular Thule cargo box and get a Yakima of similar size instead. This particular Thule cargo box (Thule Force XT) is the only one I could see with this major design flaw. I even went to the nearest REI to check out all the models and see what the heck was up because I was very frustrated with my Thule cargo box. All of the others have an adjustable slide design that doesn’t leave large gaps exposed at the bottom of the box. So don’t get this particular one. I now am a proud owner of a Yakima Skybox 12 Carbonite. This thing may have its flaws, but I have yet to experience any of them. This cargo box keeps the water and dust out, stores A TON of gear, and when positioned correctly still manages to miss my hatchback’s tailgate when it’s fully propped open. I can’t say enough good things about this box. I would recommend the Yakima to anybody. As for the Thule, I’d never recommend that Force XT to my worst enemy.