Kelty Car Tarp - 2008 BCS

Excellent communication with Andrew in Customer Service, very fast ship, excellent product, they run the extra mile for you. I'll come back. Thank you guys!

We used the Kelty CarTarp on a Tacoma with Garvin Industries Wilderness Rack while car camping at Mustang Island State Park. The Tarp fit the rack just right, and I would say that in addition to the the poles that hold the tarp up there is a pole that runs through the end of the tarp and then attaches to your vehicle so you do not necessarily need a very wide roof rack. In fact you could potentially use it on anything you can get the enclosed Velcro straps around. Here are to Pros:
* Provided shade on the beach where there was none
* Added privacy when car camping next to others
* Does its job well and it is built with quality parts
* Looks nice versus your regular tarp
* Very small/light footprint when in it is in it's bag

Cons:
* Needed help to put it up in windy conditions
* Needed to attach all the individual tie downs
* A small learning curve to learn how to use the "eyelets" effectively

TIPS:
I would definitely overcome the learning curve and try it out before you try to deploy this tarp. Additionally by doing so you will have your tie downs already attached to the tarp, which will save a lot of time. We added a generic tarp attached to one of the open sides with the tarps many connect points and me my wife and two kids fit underneath just fine in our make shift "living room," as we called it. Overall rating was 4 stars and not a 5 is because how can you really "love" a tarp ...maybe someday if it deployed on its own:)

I've had the CarTarp for a few outings and it's been a great addition to our outdoor gear. Easy to set up and take down and provides quit a bit of coverage...enough to even set my 4 man tent up under it if I wanted too! It's made of good quality materials and if it is like anything else Kelty makes, it will last many many years.
The one thing I do not care for is that the tie down ropes are black and very hard to see at night to prevent tripping over. We solved this by tying white strips of cloth to the line, but I will probably just get some rope with reflective material woven into it.

Quality of this and other Kelty products I have is great.

This tarp just didn't work right with the full-size truck and camper shell set up I have. I tried to set it up using the safari cargo rack on top of the shell as the anchor. The truck was just too tall for this to set up right.

A small SUV or sport wagon like a Subaru Forester with a roof rack would probably work killer, they're shorter.

I switched to the simple Kelty tarp for more versatility of setup options.