We decided on a hitch based carrier versus a rooftop carrier for a road trip recently. Decided to go with this one and it held up amazingly through a 2200 mi road trip from Wi to Florida and back. It arrived packaged well. The ends of the box were double layered for protection during shipping. Parts were strapped together to prevent things from moving around and causing damage during shipping and all of the hardware was included in a small box with washer and nuts paired with their corresponding bolt. Reviewing a lot of carrier options a common complaint is the instructions. This one has rather simplistic instructions but I found by doing some initial prep and studying they were ok. I took inventory of the hardware and studied the diagram well before jumping in. Overall assembly was pretty straightforward and I was able to manage it solo. I like that the nuts are locking nuts but I did add a little loctite blue for added insurance that a but wouldnt work it’s self loose during travel. The hinges for the rails wrap around completely and I found them to be solid. Another common complaint I see with this style carrier is the locking pin that holds the rails up is rather loose and can come undone. For this one I found that they again were very solid and the springs in them have plenty of tension that it makes pulling them back during setup a little hard. I had no issues with them through out the trip. The kit includes a stabilizer bracket but I opted for a third party one that had rubberized coating that I figured would help with noise. With the stabilizer there was no up and down movement. There was a slight side to side movement so I used a shim between the shank and receiver wall to tighten that up. After that there was zero movement and we couldn’t tell we had it on the back of our vehicle Maybe the only con with this one is that once in the loaded position it sits too close for us to open our lift gate. I knew this when I made the purchase and did so intentionally. The ones with enough room to open the gate seem to put too much stress on the shank and risk collapsing as I seen in some pics in reviews. I liked the additional integrity of it being closer to the vehicle In terms of size it holds a lot. We fit 3 large 18 gallon rubbermaid tubs side by side filled with clothes, etc plus room on the sides for other items. It’s just slightly too narrow to fit four with lids but we found we had plenty of space for our stuff. Of course make sure to balance the load with the heaviest in the center. We opted for an additional storage bag for additional protection against the elements. It fit well and offered plenty of room and kept everything bone dry as we drove through some really severe weather Not know how much I would block my taillights I did purchase a set of led taillights for add safety that I attached as seen in the pics using some self tapping screws. While on vacation and not using the tack we simply locked it in the upright position which is also very convenient. I found that it was easy to attach by myself when it’s in the upright position. I did wrap a strap around it and attached it to the safety chain holes on our hitch in case we lost the basket. You can see in the pics I was also able to secure our dog kennel to the back without issue. All in all I’m very pleased with the rack. It feels very solid and had no issues on our trip. I would check at every stop and nothing worked itself loose or at any point felt like something shifted and could have been lost. 100% recommend Link to carrier bag I purchased. This thing was made of heavy gauge material and held up extremely well. After our trip it still looked brand new. https://www.BestHitchCargoCarrier.com/DEERMOTO-Waterproof-Carriers-Rainproof-Vehicles/dp/B0CN8ZY1VZ?source=ps-sl-shoppingads-lpcontext&ref_=fplfs&psc=1&smid=AISRM3YWJD26J