Are after market roof racks any good?

if you do ,ill take it .Im in NORCAL

 

I bought an eBay roof rack. And was driving with the rack in “open position” and my back bar flew off. Also hardware was a pita to install

 

Its still on the truck so all of the hardware is there .. would only take me about 15 minutes to take it off.

 

i wil lbuy it, Im in Vacaville Ca 95688 i can give you my contact info and paypal you

 

sorry for the typos on that last post, but i will purchase it from you .thanks

 

I have the EOM roof rack. It's nice and all but looking back I wouldn't buy them again. Look at Front Runner or Yakima just released a new platform called LockNLoad.

 

It took one for the team and wasn't thrilled with the results. I got mine from ebay for $90. While it looks identical to the OEM rack and I'm guessing it is pretty close, it wasn't close enough. The design is really poor from Toyota to begin with and adding the Chinese knock off factor into the mix, wasn't a success. I guess if you are not expecting perfection, you might be satisfied with it.

The first flaw was that the pad that goes between the hard plastic and the body didn't fit. It was too small and wouldn't stay in place. Now it was a bit cool when I tried to install so I put both parts inside in front of a window with direct sunlight. This helped stretch it a bit, but still wouldn't stay on without popping off as I tried to work it around to get it to fit. I resorted to using masking tape to try to hold it in place. This worked marginally better, but it still wouldn't stay in place.

The install on the vehicle was more of the same "not exactly". The metal bracket needed to have the threads chased because they were full of crud and paint. Got past that and started bolting down the rear. That went easy and sat pretty flush. The problem was the front. The body fastener attached to the rack is supposed to go through essentially a pin hole on the bracket. This is pretty much impossible because of the type of the fastener used as well as the fact that the bracket is flimsy and probably not shaped correctly. Not sure if it was mis-shaped or bent from shipping. In any case it took a lot of work. When finally got it in, I realized that it really didn't matter because the rack wouldn't sit flush. There was about an inch and quarter gap in the front and with all the pushing, it wouldn't close the gap. At this point I stopped and removed the rack and now dealing with China to try to get my money back. That has been as much fun as installing the rack. I was told that the rack only fits TRD sport models and not OR. As well as being offering a $20 refund so I could sell it to a friend!

 

I needed a cheap roofrack in a hurry, to mount a cargo carrier (Yakima box) and found the OEM rack on Amazon for a decent price. Have had it a year ... and it's OK, not super sturdy feeling but does the job, and easy to install in the factory threaded holes with no leaks. I looked at some aftermarket racks but the savings wasn't great, and the bad reviews scared me off. Losing my cargo or getting a leak that ruins the headliner isn't worth saving $80 on a $35K truck. All that said, if I were doing it again, I'd get the ARB rack mounts and make my own crossbars. There's a thread on the ARB somewhere on TW.