ok, I am looking to move a full sized mattress about 200 miles from San Jose to San Luis Obispo. has anyone had any experience with tieing a matress to the top of their 4runner?

I did consider towing a trailer, but that wouldn't be too cost effective especially since I won't be looking to go faster than 60/65 either way.

 

sorry, matress and box spring.

 

Tie downs.

or LOTS of rope. Since being at my current job for about 2 1/2 years, i can't tell you how many times i've seen all kinds of objects that were once "tied down" to someones roof and then flew off. I travel mostly freeway to my work and i've seen everything from huge boxes to matresses to ladders. My advice: Use common sense. Secure it more than you think it should be. Thats what i've always done and never had a problem.

 

make sure you tie from front to back too. the lift going up the hood, up the windshield will make both fly off. ive seen this with both eyes

contact gapguy. hes done this

bob

 

Put the box spring on top of the mattress. The stiffness of the frame will help to squish the mattress down against the roof to keep everything in place. And as stated, secure it better than you think it has to be. I've never done it for that far or at hwy speeds.

 

i actually just did this , i ended up leaving the box spring and fitting the matress part inside the back , took a bit of modivation to get it in there but it worked and i even fit a few other things in with it .

 

Duct tape always works

 

Glad I can help...

Do it like this: Lots of rope..all around. Simple. This went 1000 miles with me without any problems. Your gas mileage _will_ suffer, though. Keep in mind I had a _heavy_ double-pillowtop queen.





And Bob's right...DO tie it front to back. It's not in the pics, but I added it later.

 

Somebody asked about this on CarTalk a few months ago. The guy ended up making a wind deflector for it, like on the Thule racks for instance, and it worked really well. I can't recall what he used, something stiffer than cardboard would be prefferable. Of course if you've got the box springs, it looks like gapguy has it covered!

 

Don't roll done the windows and Tie throw trough the doors.

 

I did this for about 20 miles freeway, and just used 3 or 4 big rachet straps, and it worked perfectly! This was a queen, and I set it up exactly like gapguy did.

Brett

 

i had a set of twin like the gapguy and also had another rope on the vertical, to prevent it from jerking forward.

 

See, the best part will be if you do end up rolling on the hi-way, chances are the springs in the matress will just spring you back up onto your tires.

 

or put the frame on the top, upside down like gap guy and when you get inverted you can push you 4runner.

 

get a few friends, throw the matress on, stick your arms out the windows and hold it down!!

 

Can't be any worse than This Jetta...


"The materials were loaded at Home Depot. The store manager said they had the customer sign a waiver! Both back tires are trashed. The back shocks were driven up through the floorboard. In the back seat were 10 bags, 80 lbs. each of concrete. On the roof are many 2X4s, 4X4s and sheets of OSB. They estimated the load weight at 3000 lbs. The car is a VW Jetta with FL plates and the guy said he was headed for Annapolis."
DONT BE THIS GUY!!

 

When you finish tie-ing it down, be sure you MEASURE the new height of your truck! It would suck if you didn't know it and ended up ripping it right off your rack going through a garage or tunnel or something. Good luck!

 

I did this for 15 miles and my buddy and I held the mattress with our hands plus couple ropes. Not a good idea! Max, 30 MPH.

 

Although shown in pics, it wasn't mentioned...

Be sure to cover/wrap the mattress with plastic. Otherwise, road debris, tar, bugs, mud, etc will be all over the mattress.

I also recommend removing the frame and folding it inside the vehicle. The wheels shown in gapguy's pic as straight up in the air can easily bounce off and hit another vehicle, or best case, you will be missing one or more!

The two side straps can be cranked fairly tightly. Don't crank the front to back straps too much, else will break the wooden bed frame of the box spring. Put the side to side straps OVER the front to rear.

Also be certain to SECURE the ends of the straps. Don't just rely on the hooks to hold them in place, as the mattress gives/bounces and they could come loose.

And don't use thin, cheap straps. They tend to shred at highway speeds

Stop and check it from time to time, just to be sure. Carry extra straps and some rope, just in case.

Man, all this advice...maybe we need to come up with some engineering drawings :-)

Good luck.

-DiskDoctr

 

look at these guys, if they can make it, I am sure you can......