( 10 reviews )
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Posted: Mar 3 2009
I can't speak to how it performs once mounted, but if you have Yakima racks and installed using the Yakima recommended distance between cross bars, there's a good chance this won't fit. On my car, Yakima recommends 36" between the cross bars (measured center-to-center). Thule's instructions, now that I have them, claim this won't work if the distance between cross bars is greater than 900mm, or roughly 35.4 inches. You might think Thule would be conservative in their fit estimates and that it might actually fit a greater distance, but actually they seem to have overestimated. My crossbars are actually 35.75 inches apart, and I missed the holes in this Thule bag by a good inch at least. A more accurate estimate from Thule would have been to require at most 880mm or about 34.75 inches. And its not just a few unusual vehicles which will have Yakima racks installed so wide. Looking over my Yakima install instructions, a few years old now, it looks like Corollas, Camrys and Jettas are just a few of the vehicles with 36" spread for Yakima racks. Ironically I went with this bag because roof mounted bags wouldn't fit between my bars. I'll probaly go ahead and install this bag anyway, but will have to decide if I want to fiddle with moving my Yakima bars, or drilling another pair of holes in the bottom of the bag. But then I lose one of the main advantages of spending big bucks on a name brand rack--trusting that it is engineered to perform provided I installed as instructed.
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Posted: Mar 3 2009
I can't speak to how it performs once mounted, but if you have Yakima racks on Q towers and installed using the Yakima recommended distance between cross bars, there's a good chance this won't fit. On my car, Yakima recommends 36" between the cross bars (measured center-to-center). Thule's instructions, now that I have them, claim this won't work if the distance between cross bars is greater than 900mm, or roughly 35.4 inches. You might think Thule would be conservative in their fit estimates and that it might actually fit a greater distance, but actually they seem to have overestimated. My crossbars are actually 35.75 inches apart, and I missed the holes in this Thule bag by a good inch at least. A more accurate estimate from Thule would have been to require at most 880mm or about 34.75 inches. And its not just a few unusual vehicles which will have Yakima racks installed so wide. Looking over my Yakima install instructions, a few years old now, it looks like Corollas, Camrys and Jettas are just a few of the vehicles with 36" spread for Yakima racks. Ironically I went with this bag because roof mounted bags wouldn't fit between my bars. I'll probaly go ahead and install this bag anyway, but will have to decide if I want to fiddle with moving my Yakima bars, or drilling another pair of holes in the bottom of the bag. But then I lose one of the main advantages of spending big bucks on a name brand rack--trusting that it is engineered to perform provided I installed as instructed.
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Posted: Oct 21 2008
Wanted a storage roof rack that was easy to install and easy to store. This proved to be both. Only slight issue is getting used to packing something that is higher without a ladder but managed to do so.
