Roof box and bars - Golf - Newbie!

ChilliBob

Guys, 
I've never owned a roof box, have briefly used bars about 20 years ago to carry a kayak on vbars but that's a different story. 

Basically a family of three is now a family of four, the youngest is three weeks old, so yep, all her stuff basically fills the car!

We have a VW GTE from 2017, it looks like you buy bars separately from a box, so I guess my questions:

* Do you get vw official ones? (both box and bars)
* Something like thule? - is there much difference between their standard and premium offerings besides looks? 
* Something else?

Where is a good place to get this stuff, seems there's loads of places! Unlikely to come in useful but we do have student discount available to us, as my wife is a student at the moment!

Cheers in advance! 

cymruchris

Don't get VW official ones unless you have bottomless pockets. For the use you're going to give it - aftermarket is fine.

As a starting point go to Halfords.com and enter your reg number to get the available bar and box options. 

See what's listed - then comparison search the part numbers to see if there are better prices elsewhere (just make sure it's a reputable shop).

They do own brand roof boxes which are a bit cheaper than Thule and have a fair reputation for quality and durability. 

Herzlos

In terms of function, most roof bars are essentially the same as long as you check the load rating is high enough. The more expensive ones are a big more aerodynamic so better for fuel and noise but that only really applies when there's no box on to. They may also be slightly easier to fit/remove, but again not really worth it if the box stays on permanently.

I'd stick to a good branded one from a reputable dealer (like Halfords or roofbox.co.uk), as the cheap eBay ones are usually garbage.

From there, basically any box will fit on any bars, as long as you avoid getting fancy wide aero ones.

You'd need to look your car up in their system to get the appropriate bars to fit to your car (some are entire bar sets, some are separate bars and foot packs).


Your biggest concerns are:
Weight - check that the box and bars can take the same weight as the car.

Loading - the box is essentially a plastic cover for stuff held on the rails, it's not got a great deal of load bearing ability itself, so you want to ensure the weight is suitably distributed and secured. It'll be find for carrying a buggy but useless for a bag of groceries.
Access - some boxes only open on the left/right or back. So make sure you can access it properly. The Golf isn't a particularly tall car so you should be OK, but factor in where you're going to be needing to load/unload when deciding on what box to get.


Also, towards the end of the summer holidays you'll see hundreds of used boxes going up for sale fairly cheap as no-one wants to store them.

ChilliBob

Thanks both that's really useful info. Especially regarding the file efficient bars and boxes. I anticipate we will use this about two or three times a year topps. However, with one so young and one five, I'd like to think we'd get a good 10 years use out of it. 

Our buggy may fit - Still using the one with the baisnet, that and the wheels fill the boot lol, so, good candidstes for a box - stuff the gaps with nappies, clothes etc! 

RichardD1970

https://www.roofbox.co.uk/, are very good. 

Used them a couple of times.