Cargo Capacity (Roof)

[Jacob Taylor]

Love it great looking Expedition

 

[jaeggernaut]

When I bought my roof rack the store said the 125lbs sunroof limit and the 200lbs non sunroof limit are the max loaded dynamic weight rating evenly distributed. That means you can drive with this amount of weight on your roof. It affects the total vehicle load rating and it’s handling characteristics. The glass and all the motors and mechanisms must weigh 75lbs that is taken away from the roof top load rating. Adding a higher CG. Manufacturers don’t want a top heavy vehicle rolling over and getting sued. I asked how people use the roof top tents. If they can only hold that much weight. They said that is a static load or non moving load. They said most manufacturers do not list the static load limits. That is why they offer the HD load bars to support the weight of people on the roof inside their tents. RTT can weigh anywhere from 100lbs to 200+lbs depending on brand and model. This may bust your dynamic load rating so you need to be mindful what’s on your roof. But they said if I had the HD bars (200 lbs.) and a 200lbs rated RTT I could put 400lbs of people and gear in the tent evenly distributed. I can tell you from experience that the factory crossbars are very flimsy. My rack had a lot of movement and vibration with the factory crossbars. I installed the HD bars and it’s solid as a rock now. When my roof is loaded with two boxes of tools, Maxtraxs, awning, lights, brackets and the weight of the platform itself. I am around 200lbs. No problems in a year of use.


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reviving thread... i can't really get a straight answer (or the one i was hoping for ) from ford, the dealer or the local rack store. i have a moonroof'd expedition. i erroneously bought a rooftop tent for the first time without even thinking about load ratings. i bought a 160lb roofnest condor xl and had it shipped from USA to Canada. and then found out i couldn't put it on my expedition (to my wife's chagrin since she never wanted a moonroof in the first place ‍).

long story long, my question is how certain are you that the reason for lower weight rating is for rollover safety/center of gravity issue and not because of lack of structural rigidity of the moonroof? because if it's the latter, i don't want my moonroof to crack. but if it's because of roll over, we're not going far and it's all on-road (no off-road). so i'd be ok with the amount of risk of possible roll over that 35lbs on the roof would add.

thanks in advance!

 

[duneslider]

I personally don't think it is a structural issue, its gonna hold a LOT of weight up there without there being issues. I even think the rollover safety is not an issue. Sure if you are getting really off camber or hitting the turns really fast maybe but I just don't see it. Maybe upgrade your sway bars at the same time and feel good about it all, the sway bars are too soft in my opinion and going with some better sway bars will help this all a lot. Just my opinion, obviously no direct Ford engineering here but I have been around too many lifted vehicles with roof racks to know that you can do a lot of awfully stupid things without having issues. Driving around with just an RTT on an expedition isn't going to be a problem.

 

[TheLastGentleman]

It's got to be a center of gravity thing, I can't imagine a 200 lb person couldn't lay on the roof without the moonroof cracking.