Life on the Road

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.

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 smalle

r 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.