Thule bike rack on Subaru?

Tom Reingold wrote: (clip) Is there a way to use the Thule type bike trays, somehow, on the Subaru roof rack? (clip) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Since no one else has jumped in here, I will. The answer is yes. With a little ingenuity you can do anything you want. I have a pair of Yakima round cross rails attached to my Outback, on which I am using one Yakima and two Thule carriers. The round Yakima bars are held to the car rack with stock Yakima "towers." (That's what they call them.) I am sure you can buy Thule towers to fit your square cross rails. My Thule bike racks are held to the round Yakima bars with U-bolts, and it works just fine, but I'm only mentioning that to make the point that you are not restricted to standard fittings. Use whatever works.

Maybe I didn't describe things well enough. I have a Subaru rack on my new Subaru, and I want a bike rack on this new car. The rails are oblong shaped. Would I replace this whole thing with my old Thule rack, or can I somehow adapt it? If so, where?

Thanks again.

I'm not sure what the problem is...Thule makes adapters for everything.

Go to

pick "rack my car" or whatever, pick the year of your subie, and the model, and then "does your car have a factory rack"....and then pick "bike"....and keep going. Its extremely easy, they have all the adapters.

You may have to do some digging depending on what model of subie you have, and what model of bike rack you have.

I like Thule because they are so versatile - the same rack that fits my wife's 03 Corolla also fits my 98 Legacy wagon (no factory rack), with the only change being the fit kit ($45)...

I too had leftover Thule fork-mounts and trays.There are two choices 1) Buy a kit that replaces the oblong Subaru bars; 2) Buy a bike tray that attaches to the oblong Subaru bars. I went with 1) because I wanted to mount a box as well as the bike trays and choice 2) seemed to preclude mounting anything other than the trays. It is a little confusing at first, but does all come together if you spend enough time scratching your head.

Let's see if I can make this work right. The Rapid Railing kit:

Factory Direct Mount (notice the additional square bar above the frontSubie oblong bar making it difficult to mount a level box):

If you kept the rack, you can just replace the towers on your Thule rack to fit the Subaru rack.

That's what I did with the Yakima "Low Riders" (I've got Yak Racks) If all you want to do is haul bikes, you can get the oblong clips to fit factory racks for the "Big Mouth or Velo Vice" racks.

Steve

Ken Ly> >

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