Does anyone have any exprience mounting Hullavators on Thule AeroBlade rooftoop carriers?

Your pics look kinda like how we had the Hullavator installed on our round Yakama bars, and it’s how I envisioned the unit would install over the AeroBlades. But, not according to the latest contact with a different Thule ‘tech’. This time it sounds like the adapter installs onto the bottom of the Hullavator itself and puts some space between the bolts and the bottom of the AeroBlades (which is what the problem was to start with - no room for the bolt to tighten down).

I’d like to say “Confidence is High”, but right now “Confidence is 'hopeful” . . . :wink:

I didn’t have any Adaptors handy to send photos of but they get installed in the same position as the clamps that went around your round bars but they will sit atop your Aero blades so you’re not far off from completing the conversion.

See you on the water,
Marshall
The River Connection, Inc.
9 W. Market St.
Hyde Park, NY
845-229-0595 main
845-242-4731 mobile
Main: www.the-river-connection.com
Store: www.the-river-connection.us
Facebook: fb.me/theriverconnection

Got the parts to install the Hullavator on the AeroBlades. Parts were spot on and made the install easy - and effective. But now there’s another problem. One of the Hullavator’s arms comes in contact with the door on my truck if I’m not careful. I’ve sent pics and a link to my YouTube video to Thule which shows the issue. I’m wondering if their warranty would cover replacing this (what I think is defective) part. Otherwise, I may have to fork out the money to replace it, and it’s not particularly cheap!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuyQe97vX24

Hi Mr. T.

I’m glad hear all went well with the install but in order to clear the sides of the vehicle you need 4"-8" of bar extending past the outside of the foot pack. When stowed be sure that whatever position you have the Hullavators is within the side mirrors .

See you on the water,
Marshall Seddon
The River Connection, Inc.
9 W. Market St.
Hyde Park, NY
845-229-0595 main
845-242-4731 mobile
Main: www.the-river-connection.com
Store: www.the-river-connection.us
Facebook: fb.me/theriverconnection

You can move the crossbar further out from the footpad up to a certain point to get more clearance. You may have to pull off the cradle to recheck this, but looking at your video I think you could go an inch.

But as Marshall said, you still want to respect the width of your side view mirror lest a passing vehicle if parallel parked fails to assess distance by looking at the Hullivator cradles. FWIW, mine are on the passenger side of the car so I only have that risk if parking on the left on a one way street.

In fact my rear arm tends to rest against the side of my car when it has the weight of the boat on it.

But there is an easy solution that does not involve trying to do legal battle with a perfectly nice company. I carry a traditional car blanket in the car anyway. Just hang the blanket so it is trapped by the top of your door and hanging over the spot that tends to hit. Then control the descent so that it rests onto that spot rather than clanging on it. Your truck will be fine.

@MrTommy said:
I have a pair of model 898 Hullavator Pros that originally were installed on Yakama round bars on my old 97 p/u that still had “rain gutters”. When I sold that truck, I bought Thule AeroBlade roof mounts for the 2016 p/u. I contacted Thule for help on mounting the Hullivator(s) on that new rack system. They sent me new bolts and some square slide-in ‘nuts’ to secure the unit. Well, I finally got around to trying to install the Hullavators (now that kayaking season is here) and found that the parts they sent me did NOT secure the Hullavator to the AeroBlades. Not even close. Bolts were too long. So off to Home Depot to get shorter bolts. Three trips to the ‘Ho’, in fact, and nothing would work. I called Thule and talked to a rep who suggested I send pics to show what my problem was. A couple of hours later I got a response. He and his co-workers pretty much said I was doing everything right and it should mount just fine. Well - NOT!

Later we find (on the Thule website) a thing called an “AeroBlade Adapter” which looks to be the answer to our problem. I guess it actually came with the original parts bag that accompanies Hullavators (according to the Thule rep I was emailing back and forth with), but since we had ours ‘professionally’ installed on our old p/u, we didn’t get this parts bag. Now I’m waiting for Thule to get back to me about what parts I DO need to get our Hullavators installed.

Has anyone else mounted a Hullavator on a set of Thule AeroBlade roof racks? If so, how did YOU do it?

I’m glad you got a response back from Thule. I have sent three emails pertaining the the Hullavator and have not gotten a single reply.

My Hullavators, mounted as far out as I can possibly get them on 50" square bars, just allow me to lower the cradles without touching the sides of my car. Obviously, if this hadn’t worked out for me I would have needed to buy wider bars.

What bothers me about this whole mess is, the other three ‘vators’ work perfectly fine - as in PERFECTLY. I even took the offending unit from right front door (where it was hitting the door) and moved it around to the left rear door (as in the video above), and it STILL hit the door. So position has nothing to do with it. It has to do with one Hullavator not working like the other three. Here’s the last email I got from Thule:

“The issue here is that you don’t have the required overhang of the bar over the edge of the foot which should be between 4 and 8 inches. If you had this overhang the arms wouldn’t reach the vehicle. I understand what you are saying though that the arms don’t work exactly the same but if we try to warranty this issue, it will get rejected due to improper installation. When using 2 Hullavators you cannot really use the standard bars as they were only ever meant for 1 unit not 2.”

Huh? How would the number of kayaks I want to mount have ANYTHING to do with this? It’s not like I can just slide the bars outward and magically come up with more mounting room. They are set up as far out as possible.

I’m sorry, but this just makes no sense. There AREN’T any different AeroBlades (at least not when we bought these units), and again, the other three vators DO work, and work perfectly. So I think we’re just going to eat this one and buy a new piece to replace the ‘defective’ one.

Plus, is he in effect saying the other three units are the defective ones because installed like they are, they should hit the car like the one I’m complaining about? The one hitting the side of my vehicle is actually doing what they should all be doing having been installed allegedly incorrectly - hitting the car. I know I’m going over the top here, but I’m just so frustrated by all this.

Sigh . . .

Added later: I called Thule and talked to yet another guy who told me Thule doesn’t recommend putting two kayak racks (Hullavators) on a car. Period. So there’s no point in my arguing about how the other three work flawlessly because two of them shouldn’t be there in the first place! So, all you folks out there breaking the rules and actually using TWO Hullavators on one vehicle - shame on you. Thule says that’s a no-no.

So, being the scofflaw and out-there kind of guy that I am, I went ahead and ordered a new “Arm Assembly” to the tune of $288 out the door (taxes and shipping added to the $245 part). Hopefully this one will be like the other three and work flawlessly. Otherwise I’ll be stuck with yet another arm that DOESN’T work flawlessly - grrrr.

I agree with you 100% that if the one arm “hyperextends” (for want of a better term) then the issue is with that Hullavator arm. The number of kayaks clearly has absolutely nothing to do with it.

Those aeroblades are available in different widths (model 7601 is 30", 7602 is 33…25", 7603 is 36.25" and 7604 is 40.38") and while a wider bar would solve the problem I’d continue to press for a solution that got you a new Hullavator arm.

It’s frustrating but I think you just need to keep explaining your findings to them.

Thule makes a lot of very different products. I’m guessing that they sell a lot more bike racks and ski racks than Hullavators and consequently I don’t think the support staff know a whole lot about them. Sending them a link to this thread might help.

VACaver, all of my ‘tech support’ stuff started with a phone call where I got the email address(s) of the guys I spoke to. Then it turned into mega-email discussions. You might try that to start the exchanges. The wait on [Hold] wasn’t that bad. Never been more than 5 minutes, and one time they answered the phone straight away.