Rhino-Rack Vortex Aero Cross Bar

I'm not one to write reviews but I figured I'd help others who may have trouble in the future. Ordered these bars since they were cheapest price I could find anywhere. Shipping was a matter of days great! Once bars arrived neither had VGS strips like the description mentioned. Just by chance I took both end caps off and was looking through the bars I could see something lodged in there. Tapped it on the carpet and sure enough the VGS strips fell out, as you can see in picture where they were stuck. If you purchase these bars and you don't see the strips, they're most likely stuck in the hole.

Bought these cross bars to pair with the Rhino Rack Vortex SX Legs on our 2013 Toyota Highlander Hybrid (with factory rails) and they are both great products! I like that the Rhino Rack legs and cross bars provide slightly more height above the roof of the Highlander (3.75 inches from top of roof to top of cross bars). We also purchased the Toyota factory cross bars but they are low profile (approximately 1.5 inches from top of roof to top of cross bars). We needed the extra height so that the factory clamps on our Thule Atlantis 1600 cargo box would not rub/scratch the top of the vehicle. This may not be an issue for other vehicles, but have noticed that factory rails on many new cars are very low profile and wanted to mention this benefit in case it helps someone else save the trouble of trying similar factory cross bars. Also like that the Rhino Rack system has a higher weight rating than the Toyota factory cross bars!

Great quality bars. One thing to note is that if you order a certain bar length, the channel on the bottom only runs about 8 inches towards the middle on each side and then stops, meaning, if you are ordering a set of bars that are quite a bit wider than your mounting width, that you may run out of room in the bottom channel for mounting. As an example, I mounted these to my Nissan Frontier OEM roof rack, which is fairly narrow. I used the 59” bars because I already have the same length ones on my truck shell and wanted them to match. Because the stock roof rack is only 36” wide or so there wasn’t quite enough room to install the SX clamp/channel style legs, so I ended up lengthening the channel a little with a dremel. Not a big deal, but something to be aware of.

I bought an open box ant the product was good with two measuring strips missing and a couple of the rubber strips where slightly damaged. I reached out to Rhino to see if I could get them replaced. They refused saying the product was used therefor not under warranty and would not replace any of the parts. They did give me a link to buy them which I guess I will have to do now. I am sure the cost to them would have been just a few dollars but that was too much cost for them to provide true customer satisfaction.

Rhino Rack is a great addition to my explorer looks good works good

These crossbars are aerodynamic and are very sturdy. I did not notice any MPG change when I mounted these bars versus the large rectangular Pioneer platform I had mounted previously (2 MPG decrease). I purchased the 49" crossbars. I used them to mount to some RLTP legs I have on my Jeep Wrangler JK Unlimited. I mounted my 16'4" Old Town Canoe to these bars without issue. The bars handled the 70-80 lb canoe with ease and without flexing. They also look great. I am giving the bars 4 stars vs 5 due to the design that creates extra wind noise with how I have them set-up. Even when you cover all the channels in the bars with the supplied plastic strips (top and bottom), I still had a steady humming noise on the highway around 55 mph plus. The noise was caused by the two grooves beside the mounting channel on the underside of the crossbars that are not covered by rubber strips. When I covered these grooves with tape, all the extra wind noise disappeared. Fortunately, removing the crossbars takes about 2 minutes, so I can easily demount and mount the crossbars as I need to. That, or leave tape on the bars to cover the grooves on the underside.

These are great, sturdy roof racks which held up my 2 approximately 60lb sea kayaks with kayak rack with no problem. The installation is a bit cumbersome but once you get them installed they stay on without any future adjusting or tightening. To me they are of similar quality as some of the more expensive brands out there but at a much lower price point. Make sure you get the correct feet kit to match your specific vehicle and also the appropriate towers or legs needed to attach the bars to the feet.

I bought these to mount a carrier on the bed of my F-150. They are easy to mount and have a quick removal function which lets you keep the brackets in place and take the bars off when you don’t need the carrier. This is a nice feature when you want to go back and forth with use of the carrier.