Purchased this rack primarily for the purpose of moving construction materials, with the added bonus of it being very camp ready when we do head out into nature. The assembly instructions are not the most clear I've ever used but they are definitely enough to get the job done, and far from the worst I've ever experienced. So a bit to be desired th
...Lees meerRead more about review stating I use it every single dayere but not enough for me to drop the rating or discourage purchase. If you're not super experienced assembling things perhaps enlist a friend who is to assist you, you'll likely want a second person for help getting the rack on the roof anyway. Overall the quality of the rack feels terrific and I expect to get many years (hopefully a few decades even) of use out of it.
I also purchased a variety of accessories with the rack. The "stratchits" seemed like a great idea but I have not had much success using them to hold down lumber, even the short ones are simply too long and or can't really get enough leverage. I expect where they will really shine is for holding down larger / bulky items, which seems like what they were really designed for anyway. The moveable eye bolts also seemed like they would get a lot of use but nine times out of ten I have actually found them to be in the way, so much so that I removed them entirely. I am sure they will come in handy, and the easy of installing them / removing them is super convenient. Despite the lack of use in my particular application (thus far) I would still recommend both of those products.
My ONE huge gripe is the assembly of the expedition rails. The rails themselves are awesome and very useful for moving lumber. However, they need to go back to the drawing board to re-design how these are assembled to the rack. The positioning of the bolt head makes it impossible to get a standard allen wrench lined up in a way that would make it efficient to set the bolt. This results in having to remove and reset the allen wrench many, many, m a n y times as you can only get ~90 degrees of a turn, 180 if you're lucky. The bolts are pretty long and are secured with a nylock nut inside the rails of the rack, so driving them takes quite a lot of time. To really add insult to injury here, the same mounting system used on the rest of the rack is used for the rail mounts. This system is perfect for the rest of the rack as it allows you to easily move parts around and then set the bolt to lock the part in place. This is utterly useless (and actually a hinderance) when it comes to the rails as each support just needs to be set in a fixed position, it doesn't need the ability to move. With 10 supports to bolt in, it took me the same amount of time to install the rails as it did the entire wrack, including removing the factory rails and installing the rack mounts.
In fairness to Frontrunner the instructions do recommend a ball-head allen wrench, and I am sure that would help a lot with this process as they're a lot easier to seat into the head of the bolt at odd angles. So why not include one in the install parts for the rails? Half way through I was ready to head to the store and purchase one just to make things quicker but the rails were half assembled and not fully secured, and my tools / workspace was strewn about from constructing the rest of the rack so I opted to just push through rather than get one. Don't be me, go get that ball head allen wrench, you are REALLY gonna want that.
Rail gripe aside, I'd purchase this rack again without hesitation. It's super solid and incredibly modular. The use I have gotten from it in only a few short weeks already far outweighs the brief frustration of the assembly process. 10/10 would recommend you purchase this rack. Lees minderRead less about review stating I use it every single day
