Sport Jr

This car top carrier was great! You do not need rails on top of the car to use this, but you do need extra straps and the non-skid roof pad.I drove from Cincinnati, Ohio to Seattle, Washington with this on the roof of my mid-size car, and it did great. It got a lot of abuse along the way. I drove freeway the whole way, so high speeds, there were very intense winds, downpours in the rain and snow on the drive. It came off the top of the car every night to go inside the hotel, which was a bit of a pain but with it to prevent the potential of theft. The bag got a little dirty with all of the weather and bugs hitting it on the drive, but it doesn't have a rip to show for it. A little hosing off took care of the dirt and it looks nearly new.When you get it, put the skid-proof pad on the top of your car. This is necessary. It protects your car and prevents the bag from sliding around. Trim the excess padding. It will drive you crazy within minutes of hitting the freeway if you don't. The pad flaps around in the wind and makes a very loud noise. Just trimming the extra off takes care of that.The straps were not long enough for my car. I stopped at a store and bought extra straps to tighten the bag down. You absolutely need longer straps unless you have a very small car. My car is mid-sized, average. Maybe if you have a Smart Car or Prius or Fiesta you can get away without strap extensions, but otherwise just go ahead and get some.This bag fits a lot. I was worried at first, I didn't think it would fit as much as I needed it to. Once it was loaded up, it fit a ton. It fits more than the roof of my car could take, so I had to rearrange things and put lighter things in the carrier, but it was great.There are only a few rooftop carriers out there for cars without roof racks. Luckily this one is excellent quality, holds a ton, and stands up to weather.

I used this to carry lightweight items on my camping trip to the Grand Canyon last year. Planning and packing for a week stay at the North Rim was no easy task when you are traveling in a small car. I placed this on top of my 2008 Kia Spectra and it worked like a charm. I did purchase the Rightline Gear Non-Skid Roof pad and Master Lock 3060DAT 12 foot straps - probably didn't need it but I was a little paranoid about the clips coming undone- and losing my bag somewhere between California and Nevada. This bag survived an 8 hour drive (each way) to the Canyon. and unfortunately for me it proved it's waterproof abilities when we got caught in a very bad thunderstorm. I arrived home and all my items were perfectly dry. I only used it for one trip but I think it did a great job and I am very happy with it. I recommend buying the Rightline Gear roof pad and cutting it to perfect size (I tried to leave a little room for movement and it made a lot of noise). Also if you use the extra straps like I did make sure you tie them off and then put the loose ends inside the car. I tried to tie and wrap the "extra" onto the bag around the straps and soon the wrapped loose ends just came undone and they started flapping around. Also if you are worried like I was about lifting the weather strip on your car don't be. I easily lifted it placed the hook under it and then covered it back with the weather strip and shut my door. Even during the thunder storm no water leaked into my car. The strip did lose its shape a bit and I was worried about that but after a couple of days it went back to normal.

I used the carrier during my cross-country trip from Washington, DC to Southern California. The Jr. size fit quite well on the roof of my 2003 Acura CL-S (a 2-door coupe) and I was happily surprised at just how much stuff fits into 9 cubic feet. I don't have a roof rack and unfortunately the clips that are supposed to hook onto the door frame didn't fit on my car. Thankfully, my mom had some extra straps from her windsurfing days so we were able to secure the straps through the car instead. I also purchased a car top mat (cut down to just under the carrier's dimensions) which provided something for the bag to grip onto. Between the straps and the mat, the carrier felt very secure and I reached speeds up to 95 mph--aside from some extra noise, there were no issues.As for the contentsWhile leaving DC we encountered snow, in Virginia there was salt and ice, there high winds in Arizona, and then a bit of rain once we got into California--despite all of this, the contents of the carrier stayed clean and dry. The bag itself emerged from the trip relatively unscathed as well--no rips or tears. I've attached a picture of my car after getting through Virginia to illustrate what a mess everything was.SecurityWhen filled, the bag itself was too heavy and unwieldy for my mother and I to maneuver (we're both around 5'3) so we put the empty bag on the roof, filled it, zipped it up, velcro-ed it shut, and strapped it down thinking we would have to empty it every night and go through the whole procedure again in the mornings--what a pain, but a necessary evil. However, after driving the whole day, we were just to tired to want to deal with all of that, so we asked the hotels about security and were assured that we would be fine. We tried to park under a light and hoped for the best. We stayed in hotels for 4 nights and had no problems.ConsAs other reviewers have stated, the instructions are minimal, but I went to Rightline Gear's website where they have a lot of useful information. I also came across RoofBag's site and they have really helpful illustrated instructions with the correct angles for the straps. My biggest problem was when I tried to contact the company about the clips not fitting on my doors and didn't get a response. The product itself is great, but if I couldn't attach it to my car, it really wouldn't have mattered how great it was--thank goodness we had extra straps. I would have preferred they had a choice of straps rather than automatically bundling the Jr. with the clips.