Riverside Cartop Carriers Extra Wide Kayak Kit

For the money, this is the way to go for cartop kayak toting. I couldn't be happier with my purchase.

I purchased this kayak cartop carrier to transport a tandem sit-on-top kayak by (ocean kayak). Compared to alternative options such as a tule rack, etc. this seemed like a smart/affordable investment. My first impression was overall very positive, transporting my kayak on a couple local roads. But my third trip traveling only 8 miles from my residence highlighted a couple of issues with this product. First off, $60 bucks for this kit is a huge rip off. Had I paid 25 or 30 bucks for this kit, i'd have no complaints. While the straps seem to be fairly high quality, you really need to make sure all the straps are perfectly straight with no twists (otherwise on the highway, the straps will vibrate and make an really annoying loud sound, not unlike drifting your car over a rumble strip on the highway. While this is only an inconvenience really, my second issue should have been a clear and simple fix for the makers of this product. There are four s-hooks which connect the front and back straps from the kayak to the car frame. Unfortunately these hooks somewhat loosely sit within the permanent loops of the attachment straps (meaning that when you try to hook them to the car, and unhook them from the car, they often fall out of the loops. This would also just be an inconvenience, accept that on my first highway trip, the added tension on some of the straps, loosened the fit of one of the back straps, leading to the hook, un-hooking, and the hook being lost somewhere on the highway(on my 3rd usage). As a fix to this, i went to Home depot and picked up some cheap carabiners to keep the hooks from falling out of the strap loops (while replacing my lost hook). for 60 bucks, this product should at least have hooks that are securely connected to the straps, if not a solar panel that recharges your car battery.