I just got my Scion XD a few months ago and am looking for a reliable and easy to use bike and kayak rack. I see that Thule sells one for an XD, but my friend has one of those brands on her Jetta and it makes a lot of wind noise the way it hooks into the door frames.

Has anyone put on or used a bike/kayak rack and have any comments or suggestions? Thanks for your help.

 

DeathMachine has a roof rack, so does Luc1f3r...

You can see both of the in the xD pics thread...

Personally, I like mine. But no matter what you do you are going to get wind noise. The xD was NOT designed with a roof rack in mind, so it is not aerodynamically sound with it on there. The Yakima faring take a LOT of the wind noise out, but when you start loading things on top you get more wind noise...

 

I'm going to built a trailer like this one that Yakima makes:



It is basically a super-light towable roof rack. Unfortunately, they want too much money for it. I figure I can build one for $400 or so. From experience, I would guess that it'll be less of a hit to fuel economy than a roof rack... and easy to drop off at a campsite or at someone's house.[/img]

 

Wasn't sure if you were just interested in roof racks or back racks as well. If you want a dirt-cheap back bike rack, Google "Bell bike rack" and go from there. They can be found at most big box stores for $40-$50 and they get the job done.