"I read many reviews before deciding on this product (the keeper 07203). It's difficult to judge based on reviews sometimes, but I decided the combination of price and positive reviews was worth it. I moved from Seattle to San Diego in December, and had to drive in my honda accord 94 with whatever was left in my apartment after shipping some of the larger things. My family came with me so I wanted to have room inside the vehicle, while retaining as much space as possible. I decided against purchasing a roof rack, though this is designed to be most secure with one. The straps which are built-in won't reach under and through the roof to attach on the other side. The way I made it work was I purchased a sherpak supermat roof mat and five lashing straps. We brought the straps inside the car through the roof with the doors open then closed them, and with the straps sufficiently tight the bag did not move at all. The bag did not leak at all. We drove through several winter storms (I was planning on leaving before they hit but it took an extra week to pack and clean the apartment of course), including wind, rain, and snow. The items inside were bone dry after about 1200 miles. Be sure to check with the manufacturer regarding how much weight your car/truck can handle on its roof, and be slightly under that. Also, we carefully distributed the weight, and placed a thick blanket on the inside bottom of the bag. This kept anything sharp from putting pressure on a small area of the roof and denting it. The straps and zipper were quite strong - if you keep the weight as recommended and don't pull on the straps with all your might (but be sure they are tightly secure of course), you should find the bag quite robust. It is thick, but can be folded back into a small shape and stored. Don't plan on getting it back into the original box - it's just not going to happen no matter how you fold it:) Try to avoid putting objects inside which press against the bag material with sharp edges - it's not impossible to cause a rip, though with distributed loads that is unlikely to happen. We ended up driving straight through, taking shifts and pausing every few hours because we packed the bag so carefully, and you shouldn't move it fully laden (nor would it be easy to do so). We packed it on top of the vehicle, after carefully figuring out what could go up there. It is amazing how much fits. We fit a table (disassembled), various wood materials, clothes, tools (drill, chisels, screw drivers, etc), various other power tools, at least three medium sized filled moving boxes, shoes, a duffel, and medium-sized rolling suitcase and much more. The straps do wick moisture down into the cabin, so you end up with drips, thus have some paper towels handy and be careful not to let the driver be distracted. It was great that once we arrived and unloaded we simply cleaned then folded up the bag. I measured the amount of gas used vs. distance and calculated whether I lost any mpg with the bag, and indeed as the reviews said, I lost very little if any. In some areas I lost 2mpg max, but in most it was nearly un-measurably small. I look forward to using this product many more times over the years, and recommend it to anyone. It did the job well and cost very little. Great value. A few final thoughts : -It's not indestructible, so don't load it past its limits -you'll need lashing straps and a roof mat at least, roof racks would secure it better for rough roads -if you are driving in rain and put the straps through the underside of the roof keep in mind that the straps will wick moisture into the cabin and you'll have to deal with drips -avoid sharp objects pressing against the wall or bottom, try to pad it a little with clothing or a blanket -adjust the strap retention device so loose strap ends don't flap around in the wind - that wastes some gas and is quite a sound -read the instructions regarding which direction to face the bag and other specifics -it's easy to put more weight on your roof than you should, don't overdo it - weigh the items with a bathroom scale at least and keep it under the max for your car (and keep the maximum load your car can carry under consideration in terms of all the people and what you put in the trunk too, or you can destroy your transmission and the brakes won't slow you properly or could fail) -this bag is great!"
Keeper 07203-1 Waterproof Roof Top Cargo Bag (15 Cubic Feet) (Compare Deals from $51.99)
"IMPORTANT THINGS TO KNOW BEFORE YOU BUY: The dimensions in the product details are the dimensions of the box the bag is packed in. The actual dimensions of the bag are 44 inches long, 34 inches wide and 17 inches high. The instructions state that the bag should not be used if your vehicle doesn't have a "roof rack." "Roof rack" means different things to different people. In this case, it means that you need raised side rails AND crossbars; you don't actually need a basket type rack; the bag can sit directly on the roof. The product description says the bag has "four cambuckle straps." As you can see in the photos, there are eight straps, two on each corner (hence the need for side rails AND crossbars). Check your straps to make sure the buckles were installed properly at the factory. One of mine was backward; it was easy to remove and turn it around. NOW, ON WITH THE REVIEW: I've tried enough products that were labeled waterproof to know that not everything lives up to that claim. This bag does. I used it on a trip in a Jeep Liberty from Southern California to the Grand Canyon and back. I have a Yakima MegaWarrior basket roof rack which is mounted to the factory side rails and Yakima cross rails, so the pack sat in the roof rack, not directly on the roof of the Jeep. The straps are long enough to easily run the side straps through the factory rails and the roof rack. (Because I didn't want to move the Yakima cross rails, which are aligned to fit my basket rack, I attached the front and rear straps to the basket itself and not the cross rails. The side straps went through both the Yakima rack and the roof rails.) Contrary to some other reviewers, I found the straps very easy to adjust and very quiet. They have sliding buckles that keep the ends of the straps from flapping in the wind. My roof rack has a wind deflector, and I noticed no additional noise at all. I think some people may be having problems with the straps flapping because most of the illustrations on the box just show the strap ends dangling. Use the sliding buckles to hold the end of the straps. You should get a very clean look and little to no noise. There is no need to tie off the ends of the straps if you use the sliding buckles properly. It rained almost the entire seven-plus hour drive to the canyon, where we arrived just in time for a blizzard and single-digit overnight temperatures. The next morning two plastic water bottles that I'd accidentally left inside the Jeep were frozen solid and the bag was covered in snow. Because the daytime temps never got higher than the 20s, it stayed that way for two days. Even after the rainy drive there at speeds of 75 mph for long stretches, and then the snow, which finally melted on the drive back, not a drop of water ever made it into the bag. I had to open it several times (once to remove a tow strap to pull another driver out of a ditch), and the bag remained flexible even in subfreezing temperatures. The bag has a flap that covers the zipper and closes with velcro patches. Make sure you keep this flap secured and covering the zipper. The zipper never jammed and remained easy to open. The bag has plenty of room in it. At the start of the trip, not wanting to trust the bag's watertightness, I put mostly things that wouldn't be hurt if they got a little wet: the tow strap, a bucket filled with emergency supplies, traction mats, a big outdoor blanket and a lot of other little items. It wasn't close to being full. After seeing how well the bag keeps out water, I wouldn't hesitate to put shoes, coats or anything else in it. Sleeping bags, boots and other bulky items will easily fit inside. The one inconvenience of the bag is that if you need to open it, you'll need to unfasten at least the two rear straps, sometimes four (the instructions advise placing the zipper to the rear of the vehicle, though the zipper actually wraps far up each side as well). But this is to be expected with a zippered bag. It's just a matter of popping open the clips and then clipping them back together when you're done. I am very happy with the way this product performed."
"I purchased this for our long haul to disney, roughly 1000 miles round trip. It worked great and was fairly easy to install and tighten down. It took me ~40 minutes to put up, organize luggage and tighten down. Once at Disney I unloaded and put in the back until I needed it for the trip back. I didn't have any rain, but I think if it is installed correctly it wouldn't leak. The zipper is heavy duty and goes around 3 sides. Assuming you place the side without the zipper in front, I don't see where water would get in. The zippers are covered by 2" flaps, one from the top and another from the bottom that velco together every foot or so. The entire piece is a heavy vinyl. I have an 07 Odyssey and the bag's footprint leaves 3-4 inches on the side rails, but it is longer than the roof rails even when the rails are as far apart as they would go. I placed the front of the bag even with the front rail and let it sit over the back rail. It is not as tall as the pictures appear. I was able to get 1 large suitcase, 1 medium and 1 very large duffle bag. You should be able to get 2 large suitcases and a medium, maybe carry one up there. There was a little more room left in the height, but not enough to put anything packed up there, unless you had small grocery bags. The straps and clips that come attached to the bag do appear a little flimsy. Adjusting can be a pain as you need un-wrap from the rails, adjust, try again. The straps have a belt buckle like plastic piece that helps keep the straps tight and hold excess strap. There was still some extra here and there, but wrapping it around secured straps kept them in place. I didn't have any issues with noise outside of a roof mat flapping that I placed under the bag. Placing the mat even with the bag up front on the way bag fixed that issue. I purchased some 300lb pull straps to firmly secure the bag. They may not be needed, but I'd rather spend another 15$ than worry about them coming loose, checking straps every few hours, cause a wreck or pick up stuff off the road. I did take a hit in MPG, dropping from ~25 to 21.5. Overall it was worth it and its sitting in the garage ready to be used again. It sure made the cabin area much less crowded which is a must for long trips. I don't have any complaints when taking the price point in consideration, but if I did I'd like it be high enough to double up suitcases and have some more sturdy clips to secure to the rails. I used this roof mat: Sherpak SuperMat Roof Mat and these pull straps: Highland 92106 6' Cambuckle Tie Down - Pack of 4"
"I was suffering a case of the College Junior problem: A student who has accumulated enough stuff while at school that we could no longer fit everything in the car. I looked at renting a U-Haul van, but didn't really want to drive it 400 miles for the move. I looked at hard car-top carriers, but I didn't want to store them 364 days a year. I came across this Keeper Waterproof Bag and decided to give it a try based on strong Amazon reviews. It worked great. The bag is designed to nestle between the cross-bars on your car's roof system, as shown in the product picture. But the cross-bars on my RAV4 are closer together than the length of the bag, which meant it was bunched up and wasting space. So I took an old scrap of 1/4" plywood (about 30x40 inches) and threw it in the bottom of the bag so that it sat on top of the cross bars. This also had the advantage of supporting the bag on the cross bars, rather than sitting directly on the roof. Tying the bag down was a cinch -- the eight attached nylon web straps have plenty of spare length and are easily adjusted. The bag is much larger than I expected. We filled four regular-size garbage bags with bedding, coats, etc. then stuffed the four bags into the Keeper. There was still a bit of room to stuff another half bag's worth of stuff into the crevices. The zipper runs around almost three full sides of the Keeper, making it very easy to load. The zipper has a wide storm flap that velcros down to keep rain out. We got to test the waterproofness when we drove for four hours through the rain to get home. Despite the manufacturer's warning that the bag is water resistant, not waterproof, we found the contents to be completely dry after four hours of driving at highway speeds through steady rain. There wasn't even any moisture around the zipper, due to the nice wide storm flap. The bag fabric appears similar to the rubberized material in bags I use to keep my gear dry when kayaking. Best of all, after the college move, I could fold the cargo bag up and put it back into the small cardboard box it came in. It takes up about the same amount of space as a pair of boots. Removing the carrier from the car was a simple process -- literally less than a minute. The only downside of this bag is that it really cuts down on gas mileage. My mileage dropped by about 4 mpg when driving with it fully loaded. That's probably worse than for aerodynamically designed hardshell cases, but a small issue for me since I only use it a few times a year."
"My family and I were making a trip to West Texas to see family for the Christmas break and needed the extra cargo room. I researched and researched these bags before I selected this one (I also considered the Rain-X 161040). After reading the reviews on the Rain-X 161040 and the problems with the zippers, I chose this product. I was not disappointed. We own a 2007 Toyota Highlander with a roof rack and sun roof and this cargo bag fit perfectly. I was able to put a small duffel, large duffel, medium-small carry-on suitcase, a large box that measures (14" X 10" X 25") and a smaller box. I also put a few smaller items to help fill it up. In all, it held most of our actual luggage which allowed us to put all of the Christmas presents in the back. I will admit that our cargo bag was stuffed. In fact,there were a few places where the corners of the box rubbed pretty tightly against the cargo bag material. I was concerned that during the trip the bag would rip due to friction and high winds. I was also concerned about the extreme cold causing the zipper to have issues (similar to the Rain-X 161040). We bought red bungee cords to help secure it, but after the trip up to Lubbock we realized it was wasted money - there was no need for the extra straps. We had no troubles at all. The bag held up great, especially on the tight corners I mentioned. There was no sign of material wear. The zipper and other metal parts held up well in the extreme cold (well, extreme to us; 10 degrees F). The material is thicker than a typical rain tarp, but not so thick that its difficult to deal with. Zipping up the bag when it was full was not difficult. We didn't notice a big decrease in fuel economy. We typically get 22 MPG on the highway; with the bag, we got 21 MPG. We didn't notice any extra wind noise caused by the bag. I did forget to tie down the extra slack on one of the straps and it did flap a lot - but this was easily solved when we stopped for gas and I tied it down. After that, we didn't even know the bag was there. In fact, I kept catching myself looking at our shadow to ensure the bag was still up there. I do wish we had run into rain so that I could have tested the waterproof-ness of the product. Like others have said, it seems water proof. The zipper is protected by a flap (that velcro's over the zipper) that would prevent water from getting through the zipper. I have little doubt that it would have protected the items from water. In all, I'm extremely happy with this bag. I like it because it held up in high winds and stores neatly in a small space in our garage. It's relatively inexpensive when you compare it to other models and easier to deal with than the hard shell cargo holders. It's quiet on the roof of our car and holds enough to help out when we travel to see family across the state. I'm glad that I made this purchase. UPDATE (6/2/2010): We finally used this on a trip that involved a heavy rain. Everything stayed dry. The rain was actually welcome as it washed the bugs off the carrier."
"I drove across 6 states...tied all the straps down to the roof rails b/c I do not have the crossbars. This thing did not move one inch! YES...YOU CAN USE THIS ITEM WITHOUT THE CROSSBARS. Although I did use a cheap Sherpak Roof Mat underneath this bag to keep it from slipping during wet weather. Great bag! BIG! The straps that come with this bag are actually of standard-quality but the seams are sewn tight so you would really have to be in a foul mood to damage these straps... so that's a good thing! So many times with these types of products it's the straps or tie-downs that are the cheapest part and I always end up using my own, higher-quality straps or bungees to tie things down. Not the case with this item. Now I've only used it once so a year from now the straps might be crap but as long as you store this item properly (not outside in the weather) then the straps should last a long time. WATERPROOF?? Well...not quite. The bag has a large zipper that only goes around 3/4 of the bag, so that there is one section of the bag that is solid vinyl. This is the side that will face FORWARD, towards the front, when you place it on the roof of your vehicle. It even has a large "KEEPER" logo on this side of the bag in the same red-orange color that matches the strap attachments (as seen in the photo). Quite stylish. :) There is a double-flap that covers the zipper that has velcro sections every 6-8 inches so after you zip the bag up the velcro will secure the double-flap, facing downward, so that rain will flow over the flaps and not get inside the bag through the zipper. It's hard to explain without a picture but the design of these flaps/velcro/zipper combination is simple and easy and I would say that it would be impossible for water to get in this bag IF YOUR CAR WAS PARKED AND NOT MOVING IN A DELUGE OF A RAINSTORM. However... once you are cruising at 70mph and it starts raining the wind and rain blows in every direction, including up, as the wind and rain swirls past this bag strapped to the top of your car. At one point during my travel I stopped at a gas station and noticed one section of the flap that had opened up slightly...allowing a small amount of rain to get in and dampen a pillow I had packed in this bag. This section of flap that had opened up because of the high winds was a section BETWEEN the areas of velcro, which if you remember are 6-8 inches apart. Now it POURED raining while I was driving and the pillow only got a little damp...so it was more of like a mist that got in the bag, not even enough water to make a puddle inside the bag. On the drive home (through 6 states) I arranged the straps a little differently so that they would strap down over the areas of flap that did not have the velcro present and everything was bone-dry when I got home. So I would say that if you want to be 100% certain that ZERO rain will get in your bag when you travel then DO NOT BUY A BAG. Buy a hard case - those are 100% waterproof from what I've read. BUT...those huge cases are a pain to store if you don't have the space and are very expensive. This bag folded up nicely and I can store it anywhere. For something I'm only going to use once or twice a year that was the deciding factor. And my pillows will travel inside the car from now on. :)"
"I ordered this cargo bag for my young family's first vacation. Read a lot of the reviews on it and on quite a few others before ultimately choosing this one. The first thing I noticed when unboxing the bag was the tough feel of the material. It is quite thick and heavy. Not so much that it isn't flexible, but enough to convince you that it's durable and weatherproof. We drove 600 mis each way on our trip, and unfortunately started out both ways in some really heavy rain (slowed to 30 mph on major hwys!). I can honestly say I never worried about leakage though. Not a drop of water got in! The velcro secured flap over the zipper worked very well. The second best feature of this bag was the size. We originally thought we were going to have to rent a bigger vehicle to accommodate all the cargo we needed to lug around for the four of us for eight days, but surprisingly we were left with only two suitcases outside this giant, (aside from the items needed during transit; diaper bag, snacks, etc). It held: a full size stroller, 3 mid sized duffle bags of clothes, a bag of baby toys, a full size folded up pack and play, and a few other smaller items tucked into different places to even things out. I found it easiest to load the bag on the ground, and then lift it onto the roof to secure down, so we were able to pack it orderly, maximizing the space. **The preloading really made this thing so easy to use. Up, on, and tied down in about 5 mins! And it fit right onto the luggage cart at the hotel, one shot unloading to the room! Also, per some of the other great reviews of this product, I purchased a padlock for the zipper. Standard size fit through with ease, and just gave us that extra sense of security. The only improvement I think that could be made to this product is for the clasps on the tie down straps to be made out of metal instead of plastic. They held up just fine, and I really tightened the straps down tight because we have a Ford Escape that does not have side rails on the roof rack so I was worried it might slide around (didn't move at all!), but I think to really go along with the overall rugged/durable feel of the bag, metal clasps would seal it in nicely. Never the less, a GREAT product, I give it a 5/5 and I would recommend it to anyone who needs more cargo capacity for any length of trip. Good luck and thanks for reading!!"
Keeper 07203-1 Waterproof Roof Top Cargo Bag (15 Cubic Feet) (Compare Deals from $51.99)
