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You&#;ve got your eye on a certain car top tent. Before you invest, there are a few requirements to keep in mind.
Understanding these requirements means you can rest assured that you get the right tent. When your shiny new tent arrives, you&#;ll have everything you need. Then you can set up straight away and get going with your next adventure.
Read on to learn the essential rooftop tent requirements.
SUVs, trucks, and off-roaders are the most suitable vehicles for a rooftop tent. Smaller cars like sedans and hatchbacks might not fit the bill. It depends on how much weight your car roof can hold.
Some smaller cars might be able to support a lightweight, two-person tent-like The Eezi Awn Fun Roof Top Tent. It&#;s 110 pounds and with the optional annex, 126 pounds.
There are two types of car roof weight capacity to consider &#; static and dynamic.
The static weight capacity is the maximum weight your vehicle can support when it&#;s still.
The static load includes the weight of the tent&#;s occupants.
Static capacities are usually much more generous than dynamic. This is because, while driving, any load on the roof exerts force in different directions. This affects the vehicle&#;s stability. When your car is not moving, the weight exerts a downward force only, which the vehicle&#;s frame can withstand.
The dynamic weight capacity is the maximum weight it can support in-motion.
The dynamic load is the weight of your roof rack itself, plus your tent and anything else stored on the roof.
For many cars, the dynamic weight capacity is around the 165-pound mark. With 4x4s, it&#;s often between 110-120 pounds. Here are some examples of dynamic loads for a few types of vehicle:
Nissan Leaf: 77 lbs. (35 kg)
Ford EcoSport: 80 lbs. (40 kg)
Toyota RAV4: 100 lbs. (45 kg)
Fiat Panda, Ford Fiesta: 110 lbs. (50 kg)
Jeep Wrangler hardtop: 150 lbs. (68 kg)
Audi A1, Land Rover Discovery, VW Golf: 165 lbs. (75 kg)
Honda CR-V, Toyota Landcruiser: 176 lbs. (80 kg)
Audi A7: 220 lbs. (100 kg)
Ford Tourneo Custom l2
: 330
lbs. (150 kg)
Always check because sometimes, the rating is quite different to what you might expect and it may vary depending on the vehicle&#;s year of manufacture.
The dynamic weight capacity is based on driving on normal roads. For more difficult terrain, the capacity reduces. According to Yakima, you need to reduce the maximum weight by 50% for clamp mount fittings and 30% for fixed point, tracks and other mounts.
Before you buy a tent, check your car roof weight capacity &#; static and dynamic (and off-road, if needed). See if you can find it in your vehicle&#;s documentation. Otherwise, ask the manufacturer.
Once you know how much weight your car can support, you have your rooftop tent weight limit. You can now get a more specific idea about which tents will work for you. If your car can&#;t support much weight but you have a trailer, you can set up your tent on the trailer instead.
If in doubt, get some advice from the manufacturers about your vehicle and the types of terrain you&#;ll be driving on with your tent.
You mustn&#;t overload your vehicle. Staying within the weight limits keeps you safe, and any accidents that happen due to overloading could prevent you from making claims on your insurance. Overloading can also damage the vehicle&#;s suspension over time.
You need a roof rack for a rooftop tent because you secure the base of the tent to it. Before we get into more detail about roof racks, here are a few things to keep in mind:
The rack must be compatible with your vehicle.
The rack must be able to support the total load, including the weight of all people sleeping in the tent.
The rack must have a dynamic weight capacity that can support your chosen tent.
The rack must be suitable for rooftop tents.
Not all roof racks can support a tent - ask your manufacturer if yours can. If you don&#;t have a roof rack, there are many options - you can find something that works for you.
Many vehicles come with side rails to which you can attach crossbars. (To be clear, crossbars are the bars which run laterally, across your roof from left to right. Rails run from front to back on each side of your vehicle).
Your vehicle may come with factory crossbars. The problem is, they&#;re often not as strong as crossbars that are purpose-built for specific applications.
If you need to upgrade, Yakima&#;s roof rack systems are versatile and worth considering. The systems consist of crossbars of your choice, towers (the part that mounts to your roof and holds the crossbars), and other optional components. So, you need to know what type of roof you have so you can choose the right components.
Naked
A naked, or bare roof, has no in-built rails or fittings for attaching a tower, so you need extra fittings to mount them. The installation requirements vary by vehicle. Truck cabs and smaller cars often have naked roofs.
This can be mistaken for a naked roof because in some cases, the attachment points are covered. The points are usually on the outer sides of the roof, under a panel which you flip open. It&#;s a very secure mounting system. Sedans often have fixed point roofs.
c. Raised side rails
These rails run along the outer edges of the vehicle from front to back, with space between the rails and the roof. They have attachment points for building a roof rack system. They&#;re common on SUVs and vans.
d. Flush side rails
Like raised side rails, they run from front to back, but there&#;s no space between the rails and the roof. They have ridges or pinholes for installing towers. Flush side rails are widespread among many vehicle types.
e. Tracks
Tracks are channels you slot parts into. Like rails, they run from front to back. They&#;re common on older vehicles and truck canopies, but can be installed aftermarket.
f. Rain gutters
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Rain gutters prevent rain and snow from spilling when you open the doors. Made from metal, they provide a sturdy foundation for a roof rack system. You can find them on vans, some Jeeps, and other large vehicles made in the 90s or earlier.
Next on our list of rooftop tent requirements are mounting brackets for attaching your tent to the roof rack. More often than not, rooftop tents come with the parts you need to mount them. But in some instances, you may need to get the mounting brackets separately so be sure to check in advance.
You&#;ve checked your vehicle specifications and bought your tent. Next, you need some heavy lifters to get it onto the roof. Some of the heavier models might require two people to lift them.
There are other strategies for lifting your car top tent, like using a hoist, Unless you&#;re going to take the tent on and off regularly (or your vehicle is tall), it makes more sense to lift it manually.
Finally, check the shipping process. Some large tents have to be sent to a commercial address. If this is the case, there may need to be a loading dock and forklift available at the address you provide. Check these details in advance and plan accordingly.
To sum up, you need to know your vehicle&#;s static and dynamic weight capacity, roof type, and roof rack load capacity. Check if mounting brackets come with the tent, check the shipping instructions, and have someone help you lift it onto the roof.
With some basic research into your vehicle specifications, you&#;ll have all the information you need to narrow down your search and find the perfect tent.
Car-top tents are a relatively new genre of camping gear in North America. They are essentially tents that pop-up, or fold out, from on top of a vehicle.
After a month on the road in a model from Tepui, I&#;ve come to love the style of camping for some situations. Rooftop tents are a neat new tool for campers.
Call it a rooftop tent, car-top tent, or pop-up, these new-fangled camping rigs are making ripples in the media. If my experience over the last month is telling, you can expect to see them at a campground near you very soon.
A tent on your car or truck may seem a little counterintuitive. Why not just set it up on the ground? After driving from Colorado to Alaska with a Tepui Kukenam Ruggedized rooftop tent mounted on the camper top of my Ford Ranger, I&#;m a believer.
The rooftop tent has changed the way I camp and opened up new alternatives. It has plusses and minuses, but it is the greatest new product I&#;ve found in years to get a great night&#;s sleep in the outdoors.
This post is meant to explain rooftop tents, providing background on these contraptions and answering some of the questions my fellow campers have asked. We&#;ll update this article as needed to stay in front of the genre.
For a review, check out our post on the Tepui Kukenam Ruggedized rooftop tent.
And no, I won&#;t be giving up my backpacking tent. But if I&#;m car camping&#; there&#;s a pretty good chance I&#;ll be popping the top regularly for the foreseeable future.
Car-top tents are pretty new in North America. In Australia, and other places with more nasty bugs and critters on the ground, they caught on years ago. But here, they still are pretty novel, and you&#;ll get looks when setting this thing up.
But the curiosity is warranted; it looks nuts, and folks will wonder how it doesn&#;t fall off your truck. The answer is you need a darned good roof rack, and at least the Tepui model I tested is built like a tank. Read the full review for more, but so far it&#;s withstood winds in excess of 50 mph with no problem.
Setting up the Tepui (and most rooftop tents) is really easy, and one of the positive points. You can store bedding inside the tent if wanted, and it has a built-in memory foam mattress, which is more comfortable than any sleeping pad I&#;ve used.
Once set up, you access the tent from a ladder. It is pretty similar to a normal, heavy canvas camp tent in many ways, just sitting on a flat steel platform on top of your vehicle. On my truck, I&#;m set up about 7 feet off the ground on my topper. With windows open, this really gives a wild perspective at campsites.
Rooftop campers exist in a weird intersection of RVs and tents, and you&#;ll immediately find yourself asking if you need to pay an RV rate or a tent rate at campgrounds. Seeing as I do not use electricity or water, I&#;ve settled on the usually-cheaper tent rate.
But the setup has some of the advantages of RVs, notably the ability to camp in places you&#;d never want to pitch a tent.
Driving the ALCAN from Colorado to Alaska on one late night, my wife and I stopped in a Tim Hortons to grab some WiFi and a donut. A group of cops walked in (I&#;m not kidding here) and I asked one for suggestions for a good place to camp for the night. His reply?
&#;There&#;s a Walmart right down the road. Just set up by the other RVs.&#;
A pleasant quirk of Walmart, many allow you to sleep in the parking lot. I never considered it as a tent camper. The Walmart was an hour closer than the next campground, which would likely be closed anyway as it was early May and most facilities were still shuttered for the winter. Walmart it was.
A few minutes later we were set up and zonked out in the Walmart in Grand Prairie, Alberta. I got a great night sleep in a place I&#;d never consider camping in a tent.
This has played out several times since adopting the rooftop tent. It opens a world of camping in places that would downright suck in a traditional tent. The Tepui&#;s heavy material is dark and strong, providing privacy and at least a perception of more security than sleeping in a light tent on the ground.
This setup also lifts you above rocks, uneven ground, pine cones&#;it&#;s always the same flat surface, even if you&#;re on a paved parking lot.
Pro: The Tepui I tested is very comfortable, easy to set up, durable, and weather-proof. It creates a flat surface to sleep on, and I wake well rested. Compared with a ground-tent, I think I sleep better in general. I can&#;t speak to all roof-top tents, but the heavier materials allow for thick mattresses and great weather protection.
When compared with an RV, the rooftop tent system is dramatically cheaper. It&#;s also much easier to drive, given that you are driving your normal vehicle versus a land yacht. No, you don&#;t have a bathroom, shower and kitchen sink on board. But my wife and I do carry a large water cube, two-burner stove, and a YETI cooler. So really, our system is kind of the budget RV.
Compared with sleeping in a topper or car: An advantage of this system for us (compared with sleeping in the truck bed) is that the topper is now wide open to carry gear. Nobody needs to sleep there, so you can pack it full. For us, this was huge, as we were on a two-month trip to Alaska and needed a mix of professional clothing and toys like bikes and hiking equipment.
Similarly, and especially in bear country, you can secure your gear inside the topper when not in use and at night. This is also good for pricy things you don&#;t want to leave sitting out at camp. The topper is no longer a bedroom, but instead becomes your gear locker and kitchen, with the bedroom up top.
The negative compared with a topper (or sleeping in a car) is that you will stand out. People will notice this parked in a lot. It also is less fuel efficient and more expensive than just sleeping inside the vehicle.
Con: You can&#;t set up your tent and drive away. That is the biggest negative for the rooftop system. If you want to set up a week-long camp and then use your car to go on excursions, well, you have to pull down the tent each time. You may also need to leave something in your campsite to hold your spot.
It&#;s worth noting that you won&#;t be taking the tent off your truck to set up on the ground just for short times. Any of these will weigh well over 100 pounds, and are not meant to set up on the ground.
Another negative is that the tent does hurt fuel efficiency some and can affect the performance of your vehicle. I&#;ve not really noticed a big change in my Ford Ranger, but I suspect it costs me a half-mile a gallon or so.
The truck doesn&#;t seem to handle any differently, although I&#;m sure it would affect high-speed cornering, something I&#;d never even consider in a pickup truck with a topper anyway. For serious off-roaders, it does raise your center of gravity, but if you&#;re getting weird, rock crawling on sketchy trails, you already knew that, right?
Price is another factor. Rooftop tents aren&#;t cheap (ranging from around $1,000 to $2,000 or more, and a rack system can add several hundred dollars to the package). When compared with a high quality tent and sleeping pad package, the price difference shrinks, but the rooftop system is still considerably more pricey.
There are three main types of roof-top tents, those similar to the Tepui, which open like a book and have a heavy canvas body and roof; literal &#;pop-ups&#; that have a hard top and canvas body; or those constructed completely into the vehicle as an after-market customization (think VW pop-tops).
The Tepui I tested is the fully-fabric version. These can be set up to fold to the side, or to the back, depending on the type of vehicle and configuration desired. A bonus to me using the full-canvas Tepui was that I can fold it open over my tailgate, which provides significant shelter for cooking or just hanging out in the rain.
Hard-top tents pop straight up, or tilt up from one side, they are regarded as super fast to set up. I&#;ve never spent the night in this style, but would be a little more concerned about high winds compared with a canvas tent like the Tepui.
Rooftop tents require a strong roof rack to carry them. They weigh well over 100 pounds, so be certain of the capacity of the rack you plan to use.
I used a Yakima system with Core Bars and Skyline Towers with my Tepui system, and it&#;s proven to be great, especially because the towers can be removed with just the flipping of a lever, allowing the whole rig to be lifted off relatively easily.
The initial installation of the Tepui on my truck was pretty easy, accomplished by three guys in about an hour. It will vary depending on the tent and vehicle used, but plan on an afternoon and be sure to have some helpers and tools on hand. I go into more detail about installation in the Tepui Kukenam review.
A rooftop tent will really benefit those on extended trips that are largely on the move. It was perfect for the Alaska Highway, and would be perfect for campgrounds and nasty weather.
It&#;s also great if you plan to spend a lot of days in your vehicle. Those living weeks or months on end on the road and in campgrounds will really appreciate the added comfort of this setup.
Those on a budget or who only camp a few days a summer will be better served with a traditional tent. In addition, people who want to set up a tent for several days and move the car in the meantime will also find a standard tent easier to manage.
&#;Got questions about car-top camping? Leave them in the comments and we&#;ll answer them as best we can.
If you want to learn more, please visit our website tents on cars.