I am considering the purchase of a Patriot.

My primary criterion for selecting a new vehicle are...
1) Rugged off road capability with in reason...bush roads...the odd trail once and a while... nothing too serious...that would require a winch. Growing up in bush country of British Columbia, I know how easy things can and will go bad, even with the best off road 4x4 on the market.
2) Fuel economy is very important. Gas will only get more expensive. The environment will only get more poluted. A good fuel efficient 4 cylindar motor is fine with me. Too bad all the other manufactures in the 4x4 market abandonded 4 cylindars.
3) Day to day use - pavement - accounts for 95% of my driving
4) Economical price - owned one to many expensive vehicles that have lost way too much value. Even if the Patriot loses value fast, you are still not losing much due to its initial low cost.

From what I have read and seen the Patriot is headed in this direction.

I was wondering if anyone has attempted putting a car top aluminum boat on top?
Trying to understand if the factory side rails are designed to support weights up to 200lbs? Something I plan on asking the dealer.
Would custom rails be wide enough to support a car top boat (175lb, 5ft wide, 12ft long)?
How would a 12' boat look? Would it hang over the front or the back too bad?
I say a picture at the mopar web side showing a canoe. It looked OK.

I see many posts regarding Thule or Yakima rack systems (for other purposes). For the most part, it appears these systems only support weights of up to 125lbs.

Thanks for any and all responses.

Lots of questions. Want to make the right decision.

:confused:

The Patriot has a limit of 150 pounds for cargo on the roof, so not sure if you can get an aluminum boat that weighs less than that including the roof racks you would need to put on top.

The Patriot can be outfitted to tow 1000 - 2000 pounds, so you could get a trailer for your boat.

The whole rack unit is also very short (front-to-back) for a 12-foot boat.....

Thanks for the quick response.

I am going to give the Patriot a test drive anyway.

The whole rack unit is also very short (front-to-back) for a 12-foot boat.....


How short is short at it's max length of operation?

For anything heavier than a canoe or kayak I'd pick up an inexpensive trailer and just tow it. The Patriot has plenty of towing capacity for that.

Hey Folks, just bumping this thread instead of creating a new one.

I found some aluminum 'jon' boats for sale that are really what I am looking for. I have a heavy V bottom 12' Lund on trailer that I am looking to sell and replace it with a lightweight jon boat. Towing the boat trailer is not an option as we have a super lightweight Boler trailer that we pull to camp in.

Anyhoo, I have found a few 12' jon boats that are under 150lbs. The one I really have my eye on is 125 lbs, from Alumacraft.

Just wondering if anyone out there has done this with the 'sport utility' cross bars yet. The closest I could find were people carrying 2 or 4 lightweight Kayaks and canoes. So I don't think the weight will be an issue, I would like to see how it looks and would like to read any comments on stability at highway speeds, ease of lifting etc.

Cheers.