yeah, I know. I am replacing the regular nuts holding the brackets with some acorn nuts. I'll need to bring some windex up the ladder when I swap them out. I keep telling myself I'll never see it, but I know those fingerprints are up there.....
Thanks, I'm trying to keep everything clean and low profile on the exterior. I'm planning to keep the stock wheels and tire size and no bolt on ladders/boxes/lights/etc. Going for that delivery van / courtesy shuttle vibe. Hopefully will make it less of a target for thieves.
Anything you put on the roof is going to create a little noise and affect fuel economy. I don't have enough miles on it to speak for fuel economy, but I'd done some wind noise testing. I added the AC first and didn't really notice any additional noise driving around town (but not high speed). With the max fan, I got some noise increase. Mostly because the fan is pretty close to the cockpit, so the fan is almost overhead. It's not bad, but it sounds a little like the side door isn't closed all the way. It's an issue I've heard other report and I have an insulated cover coming that can be used during highway driving to muffle any noise. Maybe a little more noise from the solar panel, but nothing I can say for sure. I took the van up to about 80 on my test run after installing the panel and it was a really gusty night. There was definitely wind noise, but nothing dramatically more than before adding the roof stuff. The increased height (ignoring the AC) is ~5" (the height of the fan when closed). The solar panel is pretty tight to the roof. The bottom of the panel is exactly 1" off the roof rails, so the top of the panel sits about 2.5" higher than the rails. It looks higher at the back because the roof rails stop and the roof drops lower near the back.