A Roofbox review! Dead exciting eh? (Autoform 380 Roofbox)

Member Name: Muddy250

Product:	Autoform 380 Roofbox
Date:	19/12/03 (2387 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent quality

Disadvantages: expensive

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What's a Roofbox? Why do we need one?

About 3 years back we decided that we ought to return to camping after a break of few years, waiting for the girls to grow a bit (also waiting to have any money left to go anywhere with!). The girls were very excited and we dug out our old faithful Lichfield, loaded up the car and headed for the coast and a campsite we'd stayed at a long time ago while walking the Cleveland Way. It went so well that we decided to buy a bigger tent and make it a regular thing. Soooo, off we trot to the camping shop and come home with the biggest dome tent we could get our hands on, almost 5m across in both directions and easily big enough to stand up in.


Too much Kit.....

Other 'essential' bits and pieces soon get added to the general camping kit and before too long the car boot just isn't going to take anymore stuff. One week we decided to pack away just before it got dark and head home as the weather forecast was pretty awful and we thought we'd pre-empt a soaking. Lucky we did as the night and next day saw torrential rain and thunderstorms. However, the rapid, disorganised packing meant that the kids were strapped into the car amongst sleeping bags, pillows and had loads of other stuff packed around them! It was obvious we had to do something so we took a trip to Halfords to look at roofboxes. Didn't fancy a trailer at the time and a bigger car wasn't an option so roofbox it was going to be.


Which Box?

The boxes we saw there were fairly large and ugly, (remember this was around 3 years ago so no reflection on current offerings from Halfords). They were also very flimsy; too flexible and the hinges and fittings seemed insubstantial so we left and had a scout round the net for information on boxes.


www.roofbox.co.uk and Autoform.

At roofbox.co.uk we found various manufactures. Thule, Kamei, Fappa, Autoform etc and the
site was packed with useful information and guidance about which style to buy for which application. We'd never come across the Swedish made Autoform before but they are a specialist roofbox manufacturer and the quality of the boxes is approved to the highest manufacturing standards. The majority of their output is badged for the likes of Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Saab, Audi, Honda and Volkswagen as original equipment and that bit of info sort of sealed the deal, if Mercedes et al think it's good enough to put their name to...

We settled on a package deal for £270 (box price being £180) which gave us a large, 350-litre Autoform Prestige box (it says 'Prestige' on the back, nice shiny badge so there's no doubt...) with metallic black paint job, Thule roofbars for the car so we could attach the thing securely and a free roofbox hoist to allow it to be stored up against the garage ceiling, very useful.



A Box in a Box.

It was delivered by courier and I couldn't quite believe the size of the box it came in! It was absolutely huge! After unpacking there was some assembly to do fitting box to bars but everything is pre-drilled accurately so no problems at all mounting it up using the steel internal strengthening brackets.


'A Perfect combination of Function and Style'(their words not mine, not wrong though!)

The box itself is slightly wedge shaped, lower at the front than the back, has a high gloss metallic paint finish and is made from 4.5mm ABS (plastic) which was much stiffer than anything else we had looked at. The lid and base have an overlapping profile to make sure that no water can get in there, it's a very close fit and seals very well. Ours has done thousands of miles in some awful conditions and never a drip inside! The side-opening lid is lifted by gas-assisted struts to make it easy to open and has central locking with three locking points for security (and to make sure
it doesn't blow open and deposit your kit all over the motorway!).

In comparison to many other boxes it looks very sleek and much lower, (you could be forgiven of thinking you wouldn't get much in there but it will swallow two large suitcases with ease and still has room for other camping kit such as folding chairs and sleeping bags still with room to pile shoes, coats etc. in around the larger items. The amount of stuff we piled in there on our French trips was amazing. There are a couple of tie down straps in there to stop things sliding around in case you're not packing it to the gills as well. For golfers, it will carry two large bags and trolleys or four bags and the dimensions are 1500mm x 940mm and 240mm at the front rising to 340 at the rear.


Don't overload things!

Weight is the thing to watch here though; your car handbook will specify maximum roofloading so you should be aware that it is possible to overload it unless you're keeping an eye on things. The whole thing only weighs 15kg so it's easy to pop it on and off the car as needed and will carry a maximum of 50kg. Generally though, the tendency is to put the heavy kit on the car boot and load the box with lighter but bulky items.


In Use.

The box is totally unnoticeable in use. You can't see it whilst driving; it makes no additional wind noise and surprisingly doesn?t affect fuel consumption in the slightest! AND as it's fairly low it also gets us on the cross channel ferry without paying a height supplement. Which is nice!


Overall.

I've only seen this box for sale at this supplier but it's a great box, top-notch materials, accurately put together and comes with a 3 year guarantee. A little more expensive than some but as always, you get what you pay for. We've experienced no problems at all, no leaks, no damage to the shockproof UV stabilised ABS it's made from and the thousa
nds of kamikaze flies that have tried their best to trash it just wipe off!
The boot on the roof has been a great help to my family in allowing them carry huge amounts of completely unnecessary kit all over this country and well into France!

The price on www.roofbox.co.uk as of 18.12.03 is £220 for the Prestige or £195 for the XR unpainted version and the capacity has risen to 380 litres so you'll be able to squeeze another 30 litres of beer in there on the return trip from the continent! Now who needs a better excuse than that?