Roof Carriers - Carrying your spare on the roof.

I'm considering doing this, just want to know from those who are or have done this, the pro's and con's.

 

Interested to see some of these setups

 

Interested as well. I didn't buy a swing arm carrier since I planned to go this route

 

PRO: it gets the spare out of the way of a bed or tailgate if it too big to tuck underneath in the stock location >33" without modding IIRC. Finally, you don't have to dig it out from underneath your truck if stuck on a trail when you need it.

CONS: Additional wind noise, higher center of gravity weight and body roll, PITA to take on or off but hopefully you shouldn't be having to access it too often. Direct exposure to heavy UVs and sun increase dry rot.

I had mine bolted onto my bajarack for quite some time. I would do it again, but I got a BruteForceFab rear and mounted it there.

 

I can only think of 1 pro... And lots of cons -

Pro
- It frees up the bed

Cons
- Getting it up/down from there! (my fullsize spare is prob close to 90lbs)
- Higher center of gravity
- No room for kayaks/canoe (deal breaker for me)
- Aerodynamics/mpgs (not a big deal, but why make things worse?)

Mine is strapped in the bed vertically right now. Still leaves a good bit of bed space... But I'll be ordering a swingout before long. Just waiting to check out Pelfreybilt's dual swingout that should be out sometime in the next couple months.

 

I have mine on a bed rack. Really considering sucking up the bed space loss and just mounting it there.

Pros
- frees up bed space- huge plus with my short bed
- looks cool---- yeah BS reason but honestly it is a consideration

Cons
- higher center of gravity- this is the primary reason I am thinking of switching. I have a good amount of body roll when taking curves at speed. I live in Germany so this is just a reality and not much can be done to avoid it.
- loss of rear vision- I have the anytime rear view camera mod done so this is somewhat negated but still is a PIA sometimes
- wind noise, aerodynamics. Haven't rear checked to see how much my MPG suffered and on top of the bed shouldn't be as bad as the roof. Still something to look into.

Honestly I am gonna pull it today, see what difference it makes and keep the mounts fabed up for when I need the bed space. Hope this helps

 

I've always thought spares thrown up top looked kinda hokey. Unless the mount was intended for a spare and not just ratchet strapped to the rack.

 

Well I was looking for a way to get my backup camera back since I have my tire mounted to a swing arm on the bumper. Good point about getting that 265/70/17 off the roof.

 

I keep a 2nd spare on my roof rack, but only temporarily when i go on trips. I found a matching wheel for 40$ with an ok tire on it so that is what I keep under the bed, so my 2nd spare rim/tire goes up top. It sucks to get a sidewall slash and be down to no extra tires and have to bee-line it for town hoping you don't get another flat. Yeah, it looks janky i just ratchet strap it down. I keep the 12ft strap attached to both the tire and the rack so I can just shove the heavy tire off and it won't roll off into the woods when I need to pull it down.

 

Lost about 1 mpg but it only got 12 mpg anyway. Road noise wasn't too bad. Only put it up there when I needed my bed, other wise it stayed in the bed.

Use a strap made for tires, not some cheap ratchet strap.

Another thing to note is don't tighten down too much, I warped the cab by the 3rd brake light a little (can barely tell, looks like 2 - half dollar size indents, one on each side).

 

You can see I have a stock roof rack, what carriers would work best with it or would I need to remove it all together?

 

@dwaltdtx does it on his Prinsu rack

 

I now have a swingout that it will mount to. I never intended to store there permanently, but it has not been an issue on the rack. Like @Large said get the correct strap and you'll be fine. Only other con I did not see mentioned is parking garages. With a lift and a tire on the roof good luck.