I had a
Thule Atlantis 1200 box (AKA Force Alpine) before on my car, which at about 17" high, would prevent me from going into practically all parking garages, which was annoying me.
The car is 66" high, plus 3" for the Thule feet and the Thule AeroBlade bars, and 17" for the box... it was 86" high. Which is 7'2", but most garages are 6'8", or 80" high.
So I set out to find a box that would let me drive into garages without scraping. I would give up a bit of interior height, but that was worth it. That meant that the box can't really have a height greater than 12".
My current box is only 12 cu ft, and its dimensions are 82 x 24 x 17. I found a couple of low profile boxes from Thule and Yakima next, that might do the trick.
I also considered the Inno boxes, specifically the
Inno Shadow 15. It's 79" by 32" by 12" (L x W x H). But surprisingly, I discovered that The Shadow 15 though isn't actually 15 cubic feet. Their naming conventions are really misleading. You'd think it can hold that much because of the "15" in the name, but it can only hold 10 cu feet / 280 L. No clue what the numbers mean in their names. The Shadow 14 for example, actually holds more than the Shadow 15, at 320L / 11 cu feet...
Thule's Sonic Alpine is 95" x 27" x 11", but only has a 11 cu.ft. cargo capacity, and is pretty long, and the inside has around 10" height. I didn't want a massive long box on the car (for looks) nor one overhanging the windshield too much, and the inside might be a bit too short for gym bags.
The
Thule Pulse Alpine is 88.5" x 25.5" x 12.5". A nice length, and a bit taller, but again only 11 cu. ft.
I was about to get the
Yakima SkyBox Lo Carbonite (same dimensions as the SkyBox LoPro 15 BTW, but $100 cheaper), as it has 15 cu ft of capacity, and its dimensions are 92 inches x 36 inches x 11.5 inches.
Too bad I couldn't get a Thule roof box I thought, as I already have everything that's Thule, in terms of roof rack and feet, plus a hitch mounted Bike carrier.
Then, as luck would have it, just last month, Thule released a brand new box called the
Thule Flow, which has 14 cu ft of capacity, and its Dimensions are 89 x 34 x 12.25", so not too long, and a bit more interior height. Plus, as a bonus, they've indented where the box sits on the bars, so it's only 11" high off the bars.
That would make it 66" for car, plus 3" for bars, plus 11" for the box, for a total of 80"! The actual height seems to have come in at 79", based on my measurements afterwards.
And as a bonus, since I've dropped my car with H&R's, I've saved another 1", so now I'm at 78" high, and go into almost all garages!
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