98 Grand Vitara - same as your 99~05.

Can you hold your roof rails and shake them - do they rattle - is there any movement relative to the feet that secure them to the roof?

The rails are a tubular aluminum extrusion, with separate feet cast from some sort of alloy - based on the fact that the parts catalogs show them as a single piece I suspect they were originally glued together with some sort of adhesive.

Mine are snug as can be, Fordem.  No rattle or looseness.

Hey Norm - would you be willing to try removing the covers on your rail feet?  If you ease the sides outwards with a sharp right-angled pick, they should just lift off.

I've had a couple of replies on other fora, everyone who has replied from North America (you're the fourth) has said the same thing - no movement - one guy in Australia says his move.

Based on what I'm seeing, it seems that US market vehicles don't get the same rails as my car has - I suspect the US market gets rails with plastic feet, whilst mine has a cast alloy foot, and that may be a significant difference in how the rail is attached to the foot.

The current plan is to drill through the underside of the rail and the feet and secure them with screws & nuts - the screw heads would only be visible if viewed from the right angle.

Fordem, 

The roof rack on my Tracker has the plastic covering like yours over a polymer or alloy(?) bracket that attaches to the roof of the truck through the roof channel with nut on two bolts/studs extending up from inside the roof rail.  You can see the scratches I made in it with my knife blade.

Note they also have two of those clips coming up thru the mount.  One on the rear and one on the front (not shown in the pic.

This is my right rear roof mount.

I think yours are plastic/polymer - mine has a cast alloy foot sitting on a rubber seat - I've attached a picture of my left rear, with the cover removed.

I've reassembled my rails & re-installed them - the taper on the tongue that goes into the rails allows for a small amount of misalignment without which the foot would be unable to seat flush on the curve of the roof.  Whilst I had them apart I ran a power cable in the right rail - the front end is hidden under the cover for now, but the plan is to mount an LED bar under the front edge of the cargo basket - the cable runs under the rear foot, under the drip rail and then down the hinge area of the back door, completely out of sight once the door is closed.

Definitely a different part than they used on the Trackers.  Should be much stronger too.

Whilst I suspect it is physically stronger, my inquiries on the Australian forums show that the roof load limits are unchanged.

All is good, though.  There is only so much weight we could safely carry up on the roof rack anyway before the center of gravity of the vehicle would be affected.