Thule 500 xsporter Pro

Does anyone have any experience with this truck rack system? I just bought an F 150 supercrew with a 5 1/2 ft bed and want to be able to carry my long boats above cab height and my ww boats at bed rail height with gear in the box. I used to use one bar over the cab and a Yakima Sportsman on the bed of my Colorado, but that design would give me too much spread with the full sized Ford.

If anyone with any knowledge of this setup could share, I’d really appreciate what you’ve got to say before I put out about $600 to try them.

500 xporter pro
Just sold the one I had. (Will not work with a tonneau cover). I works well for what you want. I would look at the (I believe) the 422 model as it appears to be a little more convenient to put on and off and slide up and down. Good well made product.

Shop the internet for the best price, you can do better than $600.

Thule
Thanks! $585 with free shipping seems to be everyone’s price, but I found that if I go through Amazon I pay shipping, ( about $26) but the system is about $540 through a vendor in Florida. I follow the dollars and don’t care where it comes from.

I’ll look more into the other model too.

Solid Racks
The xsporter is a solid rack system. I know two paddlers who got the racks caught on tree limbs or something. The rack didn’t give and the truck bed rails took the damage. Solid.



They are also very easy to take off and remount if you need to do that.



Pricey, but well made. My only complaint was that the groove in the bars that accepted rack accessories used to whistle at highway speed. There is a little plastic strip that was supposed to go in there and kill the noise, but they’d blow off. Hopefully, Thule has improved that part of the system by now.



~~Chip

Discontinued?
I think that was the case with the X422 or whatever the previous model was called. Thanks for the info. I do need them to be pretty tough. I end up carrying a lot of lumber and it can get pretty heavy quick.