well, came on here ranting about a week ago when I read the instructions on the Yakima roof rack and it said that the sunroof could not be opened and some attachments (ie, bike racks) would interfere with the rear hatch opening. great. installed it anyway, and the diagnosis looks pretty good. the rack fits fine, the hatch opens fine (kinda close to the tire on one of the bikes, so it might not go all the way up once a longer bike is on, but it doesn't contact the bike trays). It even looks like the sunroof should open once I cut about 1/4 inch off of the screws holding the rear of the tray on. It sticks down below the plastic wing-nut, so should be fine, and will check with Yakima to ensure that there's no flexing of the bars. There shouldn't be as the bike trays are relatively close to the sides, but just want to make sure. Here's the pics, wind noise is a little bit higher but doesn't really bother me as it's still 10x better than my jeep was. Will follow up when i figure out if I can make the sunroof work. :D





with a bike (smaller hardtail, still haven't tried fitting the longer downhill bike)





still not convinced of the roof-rack vs the hitch rack, but so far looks like its going to work out pretty well.

 

Looks good.

 

sweetness.. how hard was it to install ?? $$?

 

looks hot.

 

Installation was pretty straightforward, Yak already has the kit for it, along with the measurements (44" bars, I think, towers 42 3/8" appart in the front, 41 7/8" appart in the back, 22" appart front to back, 3" back from the winshield), so it really was just a matter of following the instructions and making sure that everything was tight. There's a small gap below the wind fairing that I might try to reduce, but overall the whole thing went together pretty well. The trays are pretty sturdy, which is good because there's only 22" between the trays so there's a decent amount of overhang in the back.

Think that retail on a full rack is around $500 for the towers, fit kits, bars, 2 trays, fairing and locks.

 

Honestly why would u ruin the car by putting some enormous bracket thing on top of it. Just so u can tote dumb bikes around? Seriously man just buy some 500 dollar pickup truck or something...way to ruin a beautiful ride.

 

looking good

 

Can't blame a guy for wanting to make his car functional...

That said, I think the look of the car goes down several notches. Roof racks aren't going to add points to the appeal of a small coupe. Doesn't look bad, but you won't have the girlies dropping panties on the street over it.

 

looks good!.... I was thinking about getting a snowboard rack for mine

 

he probably does not need a nice car to attract girls.....its all about the game

if you use cars to get girls then all your going to get are gold diggers

 

amazing but ture

 

There are girls that aren't gold diggers? Where do they exist?

I don't like the way it looks at all, but to each his own... I can't imagine why you'd want to ruin your car like that, I've never needed to use a roof rack in my life... but whatever works for you.

Why didn't you just buy a truck if you wanted to haul stuff around?

 

For $40 I got my faring painted and another $25 at the vinyl shop and I think it was money well spent. If ya gotta have a rack, what's a couple of more $$?

 

yes there are

all over the world and in order to see them, you have to look pass their **** and ___

truck= sucks gas
tC= Econo car

plus, i dont think he is going to put kit and stuff in his car.
he is just chosing function over fashion.

 

"truck= sucks gas"


there are more than one pickup trucks that get better epa ratings than the tC does. Calling the tC an "econo car" is a bit of an exxageration. In initial price, yes. But not in gas mileage.

 

Well, no one said anything about needing a car to get girls. Just like you don't need a six pack and rocked up arms for that either. But, if you're on the beach, hella swole, you'll get some residual benefit from it, I think. The six pack gets more looks than the kegger, so I'm just saying, in this case, the roofrack is like the keg.

Oh, and the xB rack looks good, but if you painted some of it, why didn't you just paint the whole thing? Woulda looked nicer, IMO.

 

NIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICE. Roof racks ALWAYS make a car look 10% better. I leave my rack on my car for aesthetic purposes (though I do use the cargo box for camping), but mainly, it just looks dope.

 

Are u kidding, u think a roof rack is actually like a fashion accessory which improves the looks? That's crazy man, just goes to show different people have very different tastes. Some accessories don't necessarily make a car look any better, but to performance oriented people they make all the differance in terms of looks or even sounds (Intercoolers, blow off valves). But putting an enormous bracket on top of a coupe, or even a truck, in no way increases any aesthetic value. Instead , it breaks up the lines and dramatically decreases aesthetic value. It's like putting a huge retainer that like, straps onto the head and goes all around the mouth, on a beautiful girl. Sure it serves a good function, to fix her snaggletooth or whatever, but it still makes her look worse than the snaggletooth ever did!

 

*snort! Milk coming out of nose*

 

Bikes seem to be of a higher intellect than thou. Sit on your ___ and play video games all day. Go ahead and flame all you want, you still made a asinine comment.
Jackholes everywhere!