the reason nothing snapped or broke is because roof bars weight rating is for dynamic weight. That is when the car is in motion and you are moving. When you are parked and stopped the bars can hold much more than just the 160lbs per bar.
Most of the time the rated weights for the roof rack/ bars are only showing dynamic load or what they are rated for when the car is in motion. not the static load when the car is parked. So you should be more than fine with 2 people on the roof of the car in the tent
Why am I paying ridiculous amounts of money on rent? I’m getting this and renting it for a year. The gym has a pool and showers I can use for a whopping $10/month.
my concern going forward was the the golf roof bending while rolling or stationary more than the rack system itself breaking. You definitely showed i shouldn't be concerned, thx. 2019 MK7 with Tepui Ayer2 which is smaller.
Great video. Just subbed. I was thinking of doing this to my car one day. Glad I found your video. Keep up the excellent work man. From Miami stay safe 🙏
I'm sucker for these tents on top of cool cars. Definitely on a bucket list for my next bike hauler build! And yeah as you asked on Instagram, really nice video 👍🏼 I personally love simple videos as much as crazy stuff going on.
That thing looks legit! Way easier than the mission of finding a hotel etc.. I guess as long as there’s a toilet nearby and a shower every now and then, you’re all set!
Very informative! I'm looking to put a tent on my 08 city golf and make a trailer for my dirt bike so that I don't need to use my 3/4 ton in the summer with how stupid gas prices have become in 2022
You mentioned the difficulty in using their webbing straps with the double d rings. Dont lace it through both Dees. That was intended to secure it once the velcro wears out and becomes unreliable. That tip was explained to me by the guy at Tepui that does their installs.
Fixing to outfit my m5 with the same unit. I think it’s the dopest thing ever when you see a car that you wouldn’t expect to be doing such a thing because of its “caliber”. Yeah bro that’s a tent on my roof, yeah bro my shit still does Smokey burnouts, get over it 😂
curious about the same thing! Everything online points to not a good idea but this video seems pretty sound. I'm also looking at the same setup of Thule evo but with the OEM MK7 Alltrack.
That’s a pretty cool set up. I’m just curious, minus the high speed runs what your fuel economy was like with the added wind drag. And could you visualize this working on top of the roof of my Audi A3 TDI Sportback? Thanks
i have a buddy with an A3 sport back, i myself with a gti, and i can say that the two cars are very very similar. of course adding the tent on top adds drag therefore making the MPG worse. it’s a minor thing, it doesn’t effect it too much. he has a tent on top of his car and it works amazing, i would recommend buying one if you haven’t yet. looks super sick plus serves as a comfy spot to sleep hope this helps!
Hey Jamie! I've watched this video like 4 times now over the last year. I've been entertaining the idea, I think I'm going to finally pull the trigger on it. One thing I'm curious about though, how does this effect the ease of washing your car?
damn dude! This is sick! I have a staged 2 MK7R from 2014 and I'm wondering if I can put the Tepui tent on my OEM roof rack? Hopefully you or somebody else know the anwser...
Supercool set up and I enjoyed the video but I'd exercise a lot of caution using a roof top tent with the Thule Evo Clamp roof rack. Clip systems are not rated for tents by Thule
You're correct, and this was not officially sanctioned by Thule. We stayed in contact with their engineering team, and followed a recommendation to use a 4 door car instead of a 2 door with the narrow clip in point on the rear windows. I monitored the rack through the driving, and doubt that I could have realistically done a better and more harsh real world test of it personally. I'm super proud to say that during this unofficial test it performed perfectly :-)
@@JamieOrr That's fantastic and real world experience with this type of stuff is hard to come by but extremely important. Doing this with a (relatively) light tent like the Ayer would definitely be the way to go. Cheers man.
Jamie, how did the added roof weight feel while driving...mostly looking for curves at speed or sharp/u-turns for slower speed? I think you mentioned upgrades to your car...did you upgrade suspension? Do you think stock suspension will handle this well while driving?
I'd feel less good about the Mk1 roof than the high tensile steel Mk5/6/7 cars, but... you could add more roof rack bars to help spread the weight a bit.. I've seen people putting the tents on Mk2s, 911s, and lots of other cars, so I guess anything's possible, haha.
Thanks for the video. Do you think a mk8 Fiesta ST could hold a 2 person version of the tent, with just one person? I’m not sure what the roof is rated at
When you said you went to the 150 from the 135 wingbar, does that mean it's a completely different Thule product? or just a different accessory to the 135, which then makes it 150?
Hi! I’m going on a cross country road trip in my Mitsubishi Lancer with the Thule tepui foothill roof tent later this summer. This video was super helpful for me to see not only a smaller vehicle carrying a tent, but also lowered, as mine is too. I’m curious though, are you on coils or air? I’m just trying to get an idea of the kind of ride height that’ll be needed out west on dirt roads and such. Thanks!!
I’ve always been static on these long drives :-) If you’re doing thousands of miles of gravel, watch for a buildup inside the rear arches, I’ve killed a couple of tires, but that was in Alaska and southern Argentina. Have fun!
@@JamieOrr hi Jamie, I’ve seen concerns where Thule recommends NOT using a RTT with the clamp style rack on “naked roofs” since the pressure is applied to the painted body rather than structural frame like standard racks. In your experience do you think these are safe to use despite the manufacturer warning? I want to use the Thule foothill on my polestar 2 with OEM clamp style roof bars but I am worried about damage since these bars are not officially recommended for RTT on naked roof. Your reassurance or advice from experience would be greatly helpful. I am hearing they are technically NOT SAFE. but practically, it seems like it was safe for your use and abuse.
I just bought the same tent for a 2020 GTI Autobahn. The vehicle has the VW stock cross bars... Do you think it could handle this? I can’t seem to find much info on it. Other than this video of course. Much love! 🤙🏽
I used this tent on the Mk7 GTI that I drove across South America. The bars handled it perfectly - up to 160mph, and over 15,000 miles or something like that. :-)
To answer my own question, the stock VW crossbars cannot support the weight. 😓 The bars bent slightly inward with the Thule Ayer 2. Will definitely be upgrading to the Thule evo crossbars, hopefully those ones will be a bit stronger and won’t billow inward. Great video though, I still have confidence I can make it work with new bars. 🤙🏽
I set it up for the first time yesterday. Haven’t taken it camping yet, but my partner and I got in and it started to sink after about 30 mins of being on the GTI. We quickly noticed and removed it from the vehicle and reset the roof rack. Thule Tepui Explorer Ayer 2 on stock VW crossbars, pretty sure we need a new rack. 🤷🏽♂️
Hey man, amazing trip and review, what a journey! Wanted to ask what is the cage system do you have in your trunk installed and what's it for? Does it help with rigidity of the roof to carry more weight? Thank man!
It’s for passenger protection, and the rear brace is to hold a 2nd spare wheel and tire inside the car. It’s not attached to the roof structure at all :-)
My car doesn’t have the ability to install a roof rack, are there alternate options where I can get a roof tent on my car even though it doesn’t have the option to install a roof rack
i actually had this exact problem with my car! depending on where you live, Yakima, a reputable roof rack company, will actually have shops where they can permanently install a roof rack system on to your car, despite there being mounting points or not. at this point it’s up to you if you’d like to have a permanent system or not.
It definitely effected the fuel economy, although I can’t give a proper result unfortunately as I don’t test with and without. My bicycle rack already uses around 5-10% more depending on the speeds. :-)
it’s a minor difference in MPG. i also think the wind noise can beg exaggerated a little bit too much. if you’re listening to music or talking to friends in the car you don’t even notice it, even without both of those things it’s so faint that you can’t even tell it’s there
😬Hii, this maybe a dumb question, I have a 2017 autobahn edition GTI, a w/ panoramic sunroof, is this tent compatible w/ my roof | car? If not, does anyone have any other suggestions? Thank you!!
my worry with this system is that the thule bars mounted in the seals would allow the damp and water to get in? is that something you've found? fan from the UK. GTD
I haven’t seen any water ingress at all honestly. I’ve used Thule for years and years (i literally collected different parts) on lots of different cars, so hopefully you’ll be okay too. :-)
It IS NOT rated to carry that weight so why did you make this video? It's rated to carry the 140 yeah, but not a human sleeping on top. You look small, I'm 6'3 and weight 190 lbs. No way would I put this on a GTI and sleep in it. Lame
You can't drive if you're over your roofs weight limit. But if you are parked you can place significantly more weight. At that point you are using the frame of the vehicle to hold the weight.
It’s rated for the weight in lotion, and as someone replied, you can’t drive with the tent open and people on it :-) I’m 6’0 and 180lb for reference, so not particularly small.
im gonna do this to my bimmer one day to do some sunday drive action to the alps and make some spicy bao for the night... also whats are the specs on ur vag gti? and is it a manual?
