If you are an avid traveller, camper, or enthusiastic sports junkie, you may be thinking of purchasing a roof box for your family car or 4×4 because of the storage benefits it can provide. You may have even already purchased one.
One thing many people forget about is how much of a pain it can be getting up to the roof box to pack it or unload it.
Sometimes it can involve standing on parts of your car you don’t want to stand on causing damage or dirt stains.
It can also be potentially dangerous with wet and muddy feet.
The last thing you want when you arrive at your destination is to have an accident rendering you useless during your break!
To avoid this, there luckily are some solutions out there making roof box access easier for you. This can be in the form of a small handy car door latch step, a hook over tyre step, or a telescopic ladder.
Using a roof box access solution could save your well earned break from a potential disaster!
Benefits of using a roof box access solution
The cost of purchasing a roof box access solution is very small in comparison to the benefits it can afford. They are typically inexpensive and will save you money in the long run due to all the trips up and down to your roof box without having to get dirty or damaged!
They can also reduce the chances of an accident. These solutions are very small and can be easily stored and taken with you on your trip.
Benefits of a roof box access solution:
- Could avoid an injury spoiling your trip.
- Small, compact and can be taken with you.
- Can be reused time and time again.
- Telescopic type solutions can also be used around the home.
- Low cost.
- Avoids damage to your vehicle.
The roof box must naturally be bought separately. Do you need a roof box?
You can take a quick look at really competitively priced roof boxes over on Amazon by clicking here and then coming back if you wish to.
Don’t forget that you may need roof rack bars also if your vehicle doesn’t already have them built in. Most, if not all are universal these days so fitting should be a breeze. Again, you can take a quick look at roof bar or roof rack solutions over on Amazon here and then come back.
Roof box access solutions
As briefly touched on above, here at Best Ladder Access, we want to show you the three options we have found to access your vehicle roof box safely over and over.
Car door latch steps
These options are a small, very well designed piece of kit. They consist of a small metal step with a foldable hook attachment that hooks into the door latch of your car door.
The door latch of your car is bolted to the cars chassis so is rock solid and can take a lot of load.
Once hooked on, it gives you an intermediate step solution from your vehicles door sill to your door latch. This gives you enough height to increase the convenience of accessing your roof box.
They are made of metal, usually, aircraft grade aluminium, and have rubber attachments so they won’t damage your vehicle.
The platforms are quite wide and can accommodate both feet helping stability and balance.
They will have been tested by the manufacturer to loads in excess of 200 pounds. They will also have cut outs in the foot plates to give you extra grip.
Wheel steps
Our second solution is a wheel step. A simple design in which you probably never knew existed! They usually fold up flat so are easily stored.
These are different from the car door latch solution in that they hook over the rubber tyre of your vehicle and the step tread folds down.
They are made from metal and usually have rubber treads giving you extra grip. They are perfect for giving you that little extra height, especially if you have a van or 4×4.
Telescopic ladders
Our third solution is a collapsible telescopic ladder. This solution comes with many benefits when you need to access a roof box.
Telescopic ladders are clever in that they collapse inside themselves getting increasingly smaller so they are very easy to store and take with you.
They also have the advantage of being very lightweight and because they open up into a proper ladder, you have a bigger range of heights and flexibility.
You can also move them around your vehicle and are not tied to door latch or wheel locations with the previous solutions.
You also have the added benefit of having a set of convenient ladders to use around the home when you’re not on a trip! You can read our dedicated article on telescopic ladders here.
Our choices
TOOENJOY Car Door Step
What we like:
Top well known manufacturer
Fits front and rear doors
Step big enough for both feet
Stows in a car glove box
What could be better:
Is slightly more expensive but is better quality than cheaper examples
We found this to be one of the best examples of the car door latch solutions available. Its clever design incorporates adjustability to ensure that the step is horizontal whatever the slope of your door latch is.
Two rotating triangular cushioned feet made from high density rubber stops any damage or pressure your vehicle.
The door latch step uses a scissor lock action that ensures the downward forces make the connection more tight. This makes it feel that it’s going nowhere when stood on.
The foot plate is also large enough to place both feet so you feel much more stable and don’t tire out standing on one leg.
It has also been tested to cope with a 400 pound load so will take most peoples weight easily.
Sealey STS01 Folding Wheel Step
What we like:
Max load 225 pounds
Safe and easy to use
Step has 3 adjustable heights
What could be better:
Only fits wheels up to 20 inches
This wheel step solution is really easy to use. It simply hooks over your vehicle tyre providing you with a handy step. The step is huge so provides more than enough space to comfortably stand on without getting tired.
It’s made from heavy gauge steel and folds flat for easy storage. The step has a nice textured rubber mat feature which gives you increased grip under foot.
The final great feature is that the step height can be adjusted to three heights, each with a 90 centimetre height difference.
Trintion 9.5FT 2.9M Telescopic Ladder
What we like:
2.9m height
Anti slip treads
Stows very small
What could be better:
Need to watch your fingers when retracting!
This final solution of a telescopic ladder comes with many benefits. We found the most reasonably priced example that covers all of the bases!
The advantage here is that as well as packing away very small, it reaches 2.9 metres when fully open. This means that you can reach much higher and even over your roof box.
You also have the advantage that it is tall enough to be used at home for DIY. Being made from aluminium so it reduces its weight, it also remains very sturdy.
The locking mechanism ensures all sections have a satisfying ‘click’ so you know when your locked into place.
Care must be taken with all telescopic ladders when retracting them. This is the same for all of them. If you have never owned a telescopic ladder before, you collapse them a section at a time under their own weight.
This means that the section can drop down very quickly and if you have some fingers in the way, they can get squished!
Just make sure that you have your hands on the sides and slide the catches with your thumbs and you will be okay.
You can also read our article on telescopic ladders here.
