Well DUH! on me. When I got my racks, I wanted to protect my investment, so I bought the locks.
For some reason, I decided to try to remove the towers with the car doors shut. Ain’t happening. Why did I need those locks?maybe they are for people who don’t lock their cars.
You have a car where the clips go
straight down into a narrow gap between the door and the car, like on a Camry? I can get the racks off our Accords without opening the doors. I pull up the lever on each tower, and pull the clip out by hand from where it grips above each door. A bit tricky, but a thief could do it if the clips weren’t locked.
Just went out and checked. 2000 and 2008 Accord, if each lever isn’t locked, just lift the lever and the clip can be pulled right out with the door closed.
With a Camry, that couldn’t happen.
AHA! A Camry it is.
Warning to the few of you that may
own '08 Accords and be using Yakima or Thule clip-on racks. The new Accord’s rubber weatherstripping is very complex, probably to give low wind noise.
When I checked my Yakima clips, two of them were beginning to tear the weatherstripping loose. It is possible that this is due to some carelessness on my part when putting the racks on and taking them off. But, keep a check on it. Some careful application of adhesive by the dealer or owner might be needed to keep the weatherstripping from coming more seriously loose.
Yep, depends on the car
My Volvo’s have a hole in them and the rack cliphas a pin that engages the holes. Great setup !
Other cars I have had the racks on (Honda, VW, Toyota) were OK, but nowhere near as secure a fit and would definately come of if not locked.
I had a '97 Ford Taurus which I sold because the rack had such a poor grip on the car I simply didn’t trust it with a canoe in a cross wind.
Timley…just getting ready to order
Yakama setup (towers/bars). My main driver is a 2006 Mazda 6 sedan…anyone know if this car has a roof design that allows for a very secure tower and bars? Seems the degree of slope of the inside door area is not that much and where the top clip grabs the roof rail (under the rubber strip) looks more secure. Any Mazda drivers out there in Pnet land?
Call these guys. I have dealt with
them for years and like them. And the free shipping.
http://www.rackwarehouse.com/
WELL, JMX, KINDA BOTH YES & NO…
We have an '04 Mazda 6S. Great car, comfortable, drives very well, quite well nicely appointed, got it for perhaps not a steal, but as a terrific value, and gets not great but decent OTR mileage at around 28 mpg. It totes the boats -even 3 at a time -just fine, and carries a ton of gear out of sight, but still most easily accessible, and it works so well for us kayaking that we’re looking for a 2nd car to use as a daily driver so we can preserve this gem as long as we can.
Our car is, however, a SportWagon… We clamp our Thules to the factory roof rails, so the other half of the story is we really don’t know about your clips and whether they need to be locking or not.
But every set of either Yakimas or Thules we’ve had -and we’ve had 2 sets of each -were locking cored. Maybe it’s a bit of the old “belt PLUS suspenders theory” here (see my reply to String, below), but in urban areas I really think that’s the best policy.
Heck, even if they CAN’T be wrenched off, I think it’s probably better to spend the relatively small amount to get locking cores to act as a sort of pre-insurance policy -a deterrent -to most thieves; gotta think that it’s worth it to perhaps prematurely stop the potential carnage if some would-be roof-rack runner doesn’t get started…
And I think it gives you a little more peace of mind to leave the racks on semi-permanently so you’re always pretty ready to get out and
PADDLE ON!
-Frank in Miami
CONSIDER YOURSELF ONE OF THOSE
old guys who wears both and follows that old “belt PLUS suspenders theory”.
Plus, the cores are transferable between towers, so if you get a different vehicle that can have the towers wrenched off, you can install new clips and the cores will stay tight to the car.
Makes it a lot more secure both ways, the better to keep racks overhead, always ready to load a boat &
PADDLE ON!
-Frank in Miami
Thanks Franks…
I was planning on the locks too…especially now days as thefts are rampant. My concern (and maybe needlessly) is that where the clip grabs the roof edge…it appears that it does not have much of a grip. Ahh, give me the days back when cars had a drip edge one could securely clamp onto. BTW, that Mazda 6 s/w is a great kayak hauler!
call Rack Attack
rackattack.com
best advice you can get, and they do custom installs all the time. buy the car you want, and have tracks installed for the ultimate practical car topping.