etrailer | Thule WingBar Edge Crossbars Roof Rack Installation - 2023 Jeep Grand Cherokee

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Hi, Matt with etrailer and today we're talking about the Thule roof rack on top of our 2023 Jeep Grand Cherokee. Now this can be a great option for you if you're running out of space in the back of your vehicle and you need to store any of those additional items somewhere else because maybe you got a lot of people with you or you're already storing a lot of your other luggage back here. Putting it on top of your roof is going to be a great option, especially if you do have a roof box. So let's check it out. The reason why I say this is great for more items like roof boxes is because we don't have a lot of real estate on our crossbars and that's because these are flush mounted crossbars and what that means is we don't have any overhang, it just ends at the tower. So, which is nice if you want that more clean design to your crossbars, but if you want anything to put up here like a kayak or skis, that's gonna be a lot more difficult because you're gonna have to reach over here a lot more.
So that's why roof boxes or baskets are gonna be more ideal for this. But if you do have a kayak you wanna throw up here, you don't wanna reach all the way across or it's not gonna be compatible with this roof rack. Thule does have another option that does have overhang. So you'll be able to choose whichever one's gonna be better for you. But for now we're gonna talk about the one we have up here.
It's gonna have three components to it. We're gonna have the crossbar itself, we're gonna have the tower and the fit kit at the bottom. So taking a closer look at the crossbar, this is gonna be 34 inches long, so that's gonna be the amount of space you're gonna be playing with up here and we're gonna have this aero design to it. The aero design's gonna help reduce wind noise so when you're driving down that road you don't have to deal with that whistling. Another thing that's also gonna help reduce wind noise is this rubber strip at the top and that weather strip is gonna keep a lot of debris out as well.
What that's protecting is this T channel. Your T channel is used for your more T channel accessories. So if you ever came across a situation where you didn't want to use a clamp on accessory for whatever reason, then you could stick with using the T channel and also with T channeled accessories, you can get 'em a lot closer to the towers. Then we're gonna have the tower, the towers gonna hide a lot of that hardware that's underneath here and gonna give it more of a clean finish overall. I'm a big fan of this design because it is more squared off which matches our Jeep design.
So I'm gonna have this plastic lock core at the very end of it and what that plastic lock core is doing is just preventing anyone from walking by and opening this up. Now if you do have a flathead screwdriver, you can open that up real quick and easy, but you can get this replaced with some metal lock cores for additional security. And at the bottom we're gonna have our fit kit. Your fit kit is what connects your roof rack to your vehicle on your flush rails. The way this is gonna be bolted in is just two bolts on the side. So that's gonna make this a fixed mounting system. What is a fixed mounting system It is something that only stores at one location on your roof so you won't be able to play around with your crossbar spreads. Talk a little bit about that tower, but let's take a look what's underneath that end cap. So now that I've unlocked it, I can remove it just by pulling it off and you can see this is the main reason why we wanna hide all of this because a lot of this out in the open isn't gonna give you that clean finish, but it also prevents anyone from unloosening any of these screws up. Now at the top you'll notice we have these notches. What those notches are, it's designed to help make sure everything is even up here, but really when we were installing this we didn't have to worry about that too much. So that really does speak volumes about how easy this installation is. Now something I'm not a big fan of though is when you do remove this you do have to have a tool to remove this clamp and it can take a little bit and when you do have it removed, it's just gonna leave this block on top or this bracket on top of your roof, which isn't gonna be a super clean finish. If you're looking for something that's gonna have a cleaner finish or if you plan on taking your roof rack on an awful lot, I'd recommend one of the Yakima systems, they have the option to remove the crossbars and those landing pads that they sit