Which Roof Basket

I am already have a Thule Atlantis 1900 enclosed roof cargo box. It is great for the purposes I bought it for, but it is coming back around to serious off-roading season (also known as quail season), and the enclosed roof box just isn't going to cut it.

At Camp Commander, I talked with El Cid about the ROLA rack, and I thought he had convinced me to go that way. Since then, I have looked into the Yakima Megawarrior and the Thule MOAB. Both the Thule and Yakima come with built in cross bars, allowing for the mounting of other things to the top of them. That got me to thinking I could mount the basket to the Jeep, then the box to the basket. This would not only give me secure transport for items in the box, but space next to the box where the basket is wider than the box. It would also mean I would have the basket when I got to the destination and could remove the box and leave it in camp while out for the day on trail runs.

Possible problems/questions I see with these thoughts -

1) Excess wind drag due to the box being mounted even higher than standard, possibly leading to drastic gas mileage drops (already at 10mpg) or more noise.

2) Weight - Will the XK roof bars be able to take both storage systems, and contents.

3) Price - is it worth the almost $200 more to get the Thule or Yakima over the Rola?

4) Is it possible to mount crossbars on the Rola to do the same thing?

5) Does anyone have experience/comparisons with the different mountings for each manufacturer for accessories such as hi-lift, shovel, etc?

I can tell ya the MPG's will drop and the wind noise will increase. Just taking my two little lights off my basket the MPG's went up and the wind noise dropped a lot.

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Originally Posted by Sal-XK

I can tell ya the MPG's will drop and the wind noise will increase. Just taking my two little lights off my basket the MPG's went up and the wind noise dropped a lot.

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I had the same results. I added two additional cross bars to handle any additional weight as well.

Here's an option perhaps. I have the defender roof rack and it mounts directly inside the rails on the XK that run front to back. I don't use the factory cross bars at all. Then you could mount the box to the defender rack and not be as high up off the jeep as a box on a basket on crossbars. You can see how low my basket mounts to the xk in my garage pics if you want. It has 6 brackets that bolt the basket to the factory roof rails so is pretty sturdy.

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Originally Posted by superacerc

Here's an option perhaps. I have the defender roof rack and it mounts directly inside the rails on the XK that run front to back. I don't use the factory cross bars at all. Then you could mount the box to the defender rack and not be as high up off the jeep as a box on a basket on crossbars. You can see how low my basket mounts to the xk in my garage pics if you want. It has 6 brackets that bolt the basket to the factory roof rails so is pretty sturdy.

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x2 I have the welded 1 piece rack and four lights on top. It is a sturdy rack, oh yeah full size spare on top.. 295/70/17