The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

The Good – Purpose-built

Sleek and Strong Roof Racks

Designed to take a roof top tent and forward storage

A good roof rack is one that is built specifically to suit your car AND what you want to carry. A roof rack built by Great Racks, Perth will be made to suit the exact dimensions of your vehicle and the type of material and objects you need to carry. So, if you’re a roofer and you need to carry wide sheets, we’ll make one rail upwards so you can load up to that side and have the other rail underslung to provide tie down points.

If you’re using your rack mainly for off road adventures, we can make a basket style rack with rails all the way around and a full-length mesh floor. The solid plate wind deflector at the front is perfect for mounting a light bar and the side rails make mounting an awning super easy. You want to carry a roof top tent? No worries. Tell us the make and model and we’ll make a rack to suit, or bring it with you on the day and we’ll mount it up as well.
It’s important that the materials your roof rack are made from are tough enough for the weight you need to carry. At Great Racks, we use a minimum of 3.5mm wall thickness tube. Our canopies have 3mm marine grade plate and we mount to the tray on 5mm plate and 6mm angle on well body vehicles. Want your rack to go that bit further? We use 46 x 3.5mm tube and sleeve it with 38 x 3.5mm tube so we can extend your rack up to 1200mm past the cab without needing further support.

The Bad – Poor design and materials

Attached to roof bars with metal cable ties

Made of metal so rusting away

I’m sure you’ve seen them on the road, those racks without gussets, rails bent out of shape, cross bars few and far between. The cross bars on our roof racks are less than 400mm apart so you can carry smaller items easily and they provide a strong back bone for your rack. Another badly designed product I see often is a front H or Y bar that has been attached directly to the chassis underneath the car at the front. The air bag sensors are in the front of your car so having bar work fitted that is not designed specifically for your vehicle has the potential to cause problems if you’re in an accident. The correct way to go about it is to have a nudge bar or bull bar fitted and the H bar or Y bar is fitted to this in a way that doesn’t impact on driver vision of the road, headlights OR airbag sensors.

The Ugly – Doesn’t complement vehicle

Ugly Roof Racks

Ugly Roof Racks

Yep, some roof racks are fully functional but downright ugly. A Great Racks roof rack is designed to follow the shape of your headboard and cab; adding to the professional image of your business. It’s true, people do judge a book by its cover so having a work vehicle with a slick designed roof rack helps instill confidence in your business. And for those customers who have purchased a vehicle for private use, you can add to the sporty appearance of your car with a well-designed roof rack. Our canopy and roof rack packages can upgrade the appearance of a tired-looking tray and hide a multitude of sins. And a canopy and roof rack on a well body vehicle looks way cooler that the Granddad fibreglass version.

So, there you have it, a Great Racks roof rack is the perfect addition to your vehicle for work or play.