Nissan Patrol 4x4 (Africa)

I know this has been discussed to ad infinitum. But this is for my wife’s peace of mind (probably mine too, but after a couple of beers I worry not). How much weight can die patrol roof gutters carry? I bought a family rooftop tent for me, the missus and our two girls . Now the missus is extreme worried that the roof will collapse under the weight (from all of us up there).

I have a nice roof rack that I bought from IanT. Think it’s a bush miles or some such (see the pics), and it evenly distributes the weight across the roof.

But from everyone’s insane experiences, how much can the gutters carry? Will my pixie like physique be safe up there?

I recon you have absolutely nothing to be worried about.

Especially with the load being distributed across the entire gutter with those extended runners.

Static weight is the least of your worries. Dynamic weight is what you should rather try and establish and keep in mind.

Dynamic is the weight of the stuff when the vehicle is driving on a bumpy track when the weight acts like a pendulum. This is both a factor of the centre of gravity and the continuous movement (pendulum) and carrying limit of the roof.

Dynamic weight max is probably about 200 kg with a big margin of error, while static weight (stationary load) could easily be 500kg guite safely.

This all is also dependent on the number of legs and if these legs are directly above roof pillars.

I built myself a family-size rooftep tent. 2.1m x 2.5m when open.

I mounted this such that it over-hangs the front of my rack about 300mm. This leaves me room to mount 3 20l jerries, two 5l jerries and a gas bottle behind the tent. A also have an ostrich-wing awning mounted to one side of the rack, and a hi-lift jack on the other side of the rack.

I am not sure what your pixie-like physique looks like, but I top out at around 95kg. My wife is considerably lighter, but my two daughters are basically grown up (16 and 23).

Roof rack mounts to the pillars on just three legs per side, located roughly over the B, C and D pillars.

Nothing's collapsed yet, and this combination has done several long and reasonably tough trips since 2012.

Oh yea, to reply, the gutters have been carrying my fat ass for a couple of camping trips now. The family complains about the creaking of the wooden base and the feeling of floating on waves when I turn around, but meh