Our family of four made our first road trip over this holiday weekend. It was about 600 miles in total, and the Q5 ran like a champ. I was nervous with the Michelin all season tires (no sure of the exact spec) as I had no idea how they would do in the snow, but they did great! Luckily we never ran into any ice, but with compact snow, they felt very solid.  With the roof rack, full car, and the mountain passes, we still averaged in the upper 20's mpg, which is absolutely impressive for how loaded we had the Q5. 

As much as I would like to get a clean looking hard shell roof cargo box, I'm not going to drop that kind of money for something I'll used 1-3 times a year. Second, I already have a cargo bag that is waterproof and will work just fine. The cargo bag worked great for our previous Toyota Highlander as I would just sit it on the roof directly... but the Q5's roof is nearly all glass roof, and I'm not going to have this bag get close to the roof and the problematic sun roof rails. We did got OEM roof racks with the Q5 so a roof basket seemed to be the best choice. 

• Roof Basket: https://amzn.to/3pX0uZP (affiliate link)

I went with this roof basket simply because it looked good with the low profile and the price of $130 is really good.  The only issue I saw with the reviews was a rusting reports. I picked up two cans of spray-on bed liner, roughed up the cargo basket with some sand paper, cleaned it, and sprayed it on. Sadly the garage temps were below the recommend 60 degrees so I have no idea how long the bed liner will last and likely will need a another respray. Fingers crossed giving it about two week of drying will be enough before we head out on our 5hr road trip later this month. If anything there is a couple of professional bed liner shops in town and I could always have then put down a more durable coat. 

Below are the test fitting pictures I took post painting just to see how it turned out. The "u" bracket that goes under the roof rack rails is not installed so keep that in mind. That said, for under $150, I'm happy with how it turned out and believe it will work great.

​When we get it all loaded up, I'll make sure to take a few more pictures and update this post.