How do I know if my car can handle a roof top tent?

You&#;re a couple of searches and a simple calculation away from figuring out if your car can handle a roof top tent safely and without risking any damage during actual usage. In most cases, if you own an SUV, Jeep, van or truck, you&#;re good to go, whilst sedans, hatchbacks, coupes are almost never a safe fit for a roof top tent. On top of that, you can pretty much rule out putting a roof top tent on any vehicle with a rooftop load limit under 165 lbs.

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But let&#;s jump to the steps you should take to be absolutely sure you can buy, install and safely drive with a roof top tent.

Step #1: Finding Out Your Car&#;s Manufacturer Recommended Rooftop Load

Finding out your car&#;s maximum roof top load is usually done by checking your owner&#;s manual and / or the manufacturer&#;s website. If you&#;re using your manufacturer&#;s website, make sure you select the correct make-model and year to get reliable number. Worst case scenario, you won&#;t easily find this information listed, but there are always popular forums to point you in the right direction &#; just don&#;t 100% trust any random guy that tells you a rough number.

Consideration #1: your roof is way more sturdier than you think and it&#;s actually a safety feature, in case your vehicle rolls over. You&#;ve probably seen that cars that roll over don&#;t have their roofs and passenger area crumpled and that&#;s because their roll cages are made to support a lot of weight to protect its inhabitants in case of accidents. Or carry massive roof top tents.

Consideration #2: keep in mind that there&#;s a discussion to be had about static load vs. dynamic load, so you might be looking at two numbers in reality:

(1) Your car&#;s maximum roof top static load

(2) Your car&#;s maximum roof top dynamic load

Step #2: Figuring Out Static & Dynamic Load

Simply put, the static roof top weight limit refers to how much weight you can put on your car&#;s roof (ex.: actually using a roof top tent and sleeping in it with a 2-3 other people) and the dynamic roof top weight refers to how much weight you can put on your car&#;s roof (ex.: actually driving with a roof top tent installed and closed / folded). We&#;re going to make a safe assumption you won&#;t be driving while people are sleeping in the roof top tent&#;

Also keep in mind that the static load is always higher (much higher to be more-or-less precise) than the dynamic load.

Step #3: Checking Your (Future) Roof Top Tent&#;s Technical Specifications

Whenever you&#;re buying a roof top tent, make sure to check its technical specification and save two numbers:

(1) Total Roof Top Tent Weight &#; very important!*

(2) Roof Top Tent Weight Limit / Load Limit** &#; this should tell you how much weight it can safely support.

* Why is it important? It&#;s very important because the roof top tent&#;s total weight (when closed / folded) is considered a dynamic load when you&#;re driving and most maximum roof top loads actually mean dynamic loads, not maximum loads supported when stationed.

** Ok, why? Well, consider this &#; a roof top tent might be marketed as a 4 person roof top tent, but they might be using Vogue models&#;so you should always question marketing and actual add up the total weight of accessories you&#;re going to put in that RTT and the weight of all the people that will be sleeping or spending time simultaneously inside. You might be surprised that a 4 person roof top tent will actually fit 4 people, but isn&#;t designed or tested for their total weight in your specific scenario.

Step #4: Buying the Right Roof Racks for Your (Future) Tent

Most likely your choice of a roof top tent doesn&#;t come with a roof rack included in the kit and it&#;s, unfortunately, a critical piece of equipment you have to invest in.

Considering that the brands designing the roof top tents have gone through extensive testing and (at least theoretically) know their product inside-out, your best options of buying a roof rack are as follows:

(1) Best Bet: buy one of the roof racks they&#;ve tested and recommend.

(2) Next Best Bet: buy a premium, heavy duty roof rack. Considering the prices of roof top tents, this is one accessory you shouldn&#;t look at saving money when purchasing.

(3) Risky Move: buy popular roof racks that aren&#;t typically considered heavy-duty or are very close in terms of maximum weight load limit to the RTTs actual weight. It&#;s risky because you might be putting on more weight than you think (think of the guests!) and you&#;ll end up damaging your car, roof racks and roof top tent in a worst case scenario.

We&#;re going to refrain from recommending any roof racks in this scenario, as it&#;s always best to decide based on what roof top tent you&#;re looking at and what vehicle you&#;re installing it on.

Step #4: Estimating Maximum Total Payload

A couple other things to look at are GVWR, which stands for Gross Vehicle Weight Rating and CW, which stands for Curb Weight (total weight that your car weighs when sitting on the curb / not moving, without any passengers or heavy-weight accessories and aftermarket parts such as roof top tents).

These two numbers can be annoying to find at times (some vehicles have them listed on a placard on the driver&#;s side door for example) and your best and safest bet is to look them up in the owner&#;s manual and/or the actual manufacturer website. We wouldn&#;t recommend trusting figures thrown around on forums, as these numbers have some serious implications on your ability to safely drive your car.

Now that you have the information on GVWR and CW, there&#;s a simple calculation to be made:

GVWR (Gross Vehicle Weight Rating) &#; CW (Curb Weight) = Total Payload Capacity or Supported Payload

Knowing the supported payload, you should now get some peace of mind by making the following calculation:

Passengers&#; Weight + Roof Top Tent & Accessories Weight < Supported Payload

It&#;s as simple as that and in 99% of the cases you&#;ll see that the total weight of passengers and the roof top tent plus any accessories is less than the supported payload.

Step #5: Get Some Peace of Mind

In most cases, it&#;s just nice to see what other overlanders are doing and if you search for &#;my make-model roof top tent&#;, you&#;re sure to find all sorts of RTT kits guaranteed to work for your vehicle and you might discover some cool builds with RTTs, giving you some extra piece of mind.

You Should Also Know That&#;

&#;weight limitations are the main concern of most roof top tent buyers, but there are a few other things you might want to consider, from gas mileage to wind resistance.

Is my car suited for a rooftop tent?

This is the first question you should ask yourself before you go ahead and purchase one. It is important for you to know that roof top tents can and will work on any car, however that doesn&#;t mean your car is ideal for one, or that you will need to buy other accessories such as a rack in order to be able to safely carry one.

Driving across Australia we have seen hundreds of vans (Jucy we&#;re looking at you), with heavy hard top tents on top of them. 

There are many stories like that, but the truth is that despite the tents working fine on any vehicle, you need to be smart on how you use them or carry them. If you own a sedan, or a very compact vehicle such as a hatchback, keep in mind these tents will have a different impact on your vehicle.

Any rooftop tent will mean an additional weight on top of your roof, and they create a lot of wind resistance.

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RTTs tend to be 120 lbs the lightest, and they need to be set up on a set of roof racks (more weight), so if your car is smaller and with less power, then it will be affected more by the additional weight, meaning you'll feel a big change in power, speed and acceleration.

Of course, there are tents such as Featherlite by Front Runner Outfitters, that are less than 100 lbs of weight and are better suited for sedans or smaller cars.

It&#;s not recommended to keep all that weight on smaller vehicles all the time. Have them on only when you&#;re going to use them, take them off when you won&#;t.

On larger, stronger and better equipped vehicles, utes, 4x4s, you can leave them on all the time.

Lastly, before we go onto the next section, the key and most important thing is to understand that in order to carry a roof top tent on your vehicle, any vehicle, you need the appropriate set of either a roof rack or crossbars.

 Wanaka Roof Top Tent by Guana Equipment

Will My Racks Work With The Roof Top Tents?

Getting the right rack is very important. There are a few recommended brands for roof racks: Front Runner Outfitters, Yakima, Thule and Rhino Rack, but others will work just fine as long as they have the numbers right.  

Roof Top Tents can be installed on flat racks, cross bars or a canopy, what matter is the load rating or weight capacity of the type of system you choose.

You will want to take a look at what is called the Dynamic Weight Capacity (DWC), and that must be at least the weight of the tent. Normally, most car manufacturers and rack brands will call the DWC the &#;Load Rating&#; or &#;Load Capacity&#;. When we say that the DWC must be at least the weight of the tent, that means that if the tent weighs 130 lbs, the racks MUST have at least that same DWC.

The DWC is the weight that the rack can physically carry while the vehicle is in motion. When the tent is in use, the weight of the tent plus the weight of the occupants is effectively dispersed over the entire frame of the vehicle, so it doesn't matter that you're adding some extra pounds as long as the vehicle is NOT in motion.

Generally, when the car or vehicle is parked, then the load rating of the racks is three or four times as much as when in motion.

When the vehicle is parked, the load rating becomes the Static Weight Capacity (SWC). This is a much, much greater capacity, as the frame of the vehicle will be strong enough to hold the weight of the occupants.

That is why you will see that Front Runner Slimline II racks tend to have a load rating of 600 lbs, that&#;s when the vehicle is static. That is enough to hold any rooftop tent, with 4 people in it.

With all that said, you do not want to just put your RTT on top of any rack. Let us explain, take as an example Rhino-Racks, their Fixed Mounting Point, Backbones, Gutter Mount and Trackmount (see image below) systems will all work with RTTs, but the systems might not be recommended since extreme weight increases can alter the engineering of the product. Meaning that before you purchase an RTT, make sure you have a good rack system in place that can hold them.

We highly recommend that you buy aftermarket racks and not use the factory installed racks from the car manufacturer.

One of our preferred rack systems is the Rhino-Rack Backbone system, because it&#;s one of the safest and strongest. They are specifically designed for an increased Static Weight Capacity, ideal for RTTs.

Another good thing to know is that stock-mounting hardware will on average fit rack bars with a cross-section of 3.25" width x 2" height. Be sure to mount your racks 32"-48" apart on your vehicle!

How About The Weight Capacity Of The Tents?

Roof Top Tent by Front Runner

Most of the tents that we offer at Off Road Tents AU have a weight that goes between 100 lbs and 220 lbs, so what tent you choose will depend on how much weight your roof rack can carry. The positive thing is that because we have many different brands and styles of tents, your rack will probably be able to hold at least one of the models in our collection.

You can also choose from our racks. We have cross bars, as well as platform racks such as the Rhino Rack Pioneer or the Front Runner Slimline II. We even sell racks for the bed of the Ute, or load bed bars if you prefer something more affordable and less complex.

In regards to tent weight capacity, RTTs average 200 lbs per occupant. In the case of the two-person, the total weight capacity would be approximately 400 lbs. A three-person tent, has a capacity of around 600 lbs, etc It is also worth noting that the ladders have an average weight capacity of 320 lbs.

***If you're not sure whether your vehicle has the right roof rack, please take a look at our roof rack collection, most of which will be able to support any roof top tent.***

FINALLY, if you would like to share info, pictures or anything roof top tent or overland related, please feel free to do so Joining Our Facebook Group HERE.

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