ThuleRoof Rack System Fit Kits

This is a copy of the review I posted for the Thule 460 foot pack.As an update, about a month later, and after sending a copy of my review directly to Thule, I have not received any sort of reply from Thule. Something tells me they don't really care.Horrible to installMarch 12, 2019This review is about the combination of the Thule 460 foot pack and the 3160 fit kit on a 2016 Mazda CX-9 using the Mazda factory installed rails and the square bar option. While the equipment itself looks like it will be solid once you get it on, installing this set of foot packs and fit kit is a nightmare, thus the one-star rating.I am a fairly smart and handy person, but I spent over 8 hours trying to get this setup installed. There are many problems with the installation process. First, the directions are horrible. They are all indecipherable pictures with no text and no hints or tips as to orientation of the parts, etc. Second, the allen wrench tool they provide to bolt the foot packs onto the car rails is useless. It is too long on both the short and long ends. The short end which goes into the bolt head is too long to fit into the curvature of the roofline, which is sloping toward the sides of the car roof and meets the roof rails in a "V". It is worse on the back feet than the front because the slope is more severe by the rear mounting points. I wound up cutting a same-sized Allen wrench to where the short side was about 3/4" and the long side was about 3". This helped and finally allowed me to complete my installation but it is ridiculous that that's the best tool that Thule could provide.Third and worst of all, to mount this setup, the mounting holes that accept the mounting bolts face toward the center of the car. This means that you have to get on a ladder so you can somehow look back toward yourself in order to see the mounting holes. Complicating things further, the foot packs themselves obscure your view of the mounting holes so that you are trying to catch a thread of your 8 mounting bolts virtually BLIND, while using a tool that will not fit in the space. This took over 8 hours of time and frustration - an average of over one hour per bolt to finally catch a bolt thread so that I could tighten them down and secure the foot to the rail. I thought it would get easier the farther I got, having started with the front ones, but it only got worse when trying to do the more cramped back ones. I would have stopped and returned this setup after installing the first one if I didn't realize that it would be as difficult to disassemble as it was to assemble.So, I would NOT recommend trying to install this yourself. I think even for the pros it would be very difficult. I didn't check how much someplace like Rack and Road would charge to install -- I would guess +/- $100.Overall, I'm not sure this whole setup is worth the hassle. Another factor is that the crossbars for this car are only about 30" apart, which doesn't give you a very stable rack for larger items.I believe this a very poorly designed setup at least as far as installation is concerned. I realize that Thule has to deal with the setup that Mazda gives them and adapt their product to the constraints that Mazda gives them, but Jeez, it seems like they should have been able to do better than this. This is a horror show.As an aside, also having to do with Thule, I decided to take my old Thule square bars off another vehicle and put them on this new one. However, they had been on for about 35 years and I had lost the key to the locks. I was able to pick 2 of them to get them off, but it was taking too much time so I decided to call Thule to ask if they had a key that I could buy. I gave them the lock number stamped on the cylinder and the customer support woman said that these couldn't be Thule locks because their lock numbers only go from 0 to 200. There is no question that these were Thule locks, but maybe they were just too old for this person to be familiar with. She kept insisting and I finally gave up and went to a local locksmith. While I waited for them to make a key, I was able to pick the other 2 locks and therefore save myself about $75.So I'm not happy with Thule. I think they put out a product that is very difficult to install and they offered very little assistance in the way of instructions, tools, or support. Again, I would return this product if it wasn't going to be as difficult to uninstall as it was to install. Maybe other styles (like the Aero) are easier to install. All I know is this one is a bear.Thule needs to create better directions, this time with words. And an installation video. And better tools. The best install video I found was done by a woman working for a reseller who was very cheery about how you just "start the bolts with your fingers and then use the magic allen wrench to finish tightening them down". I'm not believing this. Her smaller hands MAY have allowed her to start those bolts more easily, but my guess is, because of the obvious editing of the video, she probably spent about as much time as I did trying to get those bolts in. And I know she didn't have an allen wrench that Thule supplied that allowed her to finish tightening them down. Theirs simply doesn't fit. My solution (cutting a shorter allen wrench) worked, but it still was FAR from easy.So good luck. I hope other people have had better luck than I did. If you did, I'd be curious about how you did it.

First I checked that the Fit Kit holes lined up with the factory holes on my 2017 Honda CR-V roof rails. They were perfect. Then I sat at my kitchen table and test fit all the parts from the Fit Kit and Podium Foot Pack together first, to make sure I understood how they went together before putting anything on my car. While fitting the plastic plug and the plastic cover (with Thule printed on it) I could see that the small "bump" on the plug must face down when you push it in, so it snaps into place. Then when you turn the plug clockwise, it snaps again into place and the inside tip of the plug hooks into a notch on the Foot. Yeah I think Thule is overpriced but over the years their stuff has held up. Its also nice that I've been able to use the square load bars I bought back in 1982 for a Mazda GLC Sport, with five other vehicles since then just buying the appropriate Fit Kit and/or Foot Pack.

The 5029 clamp kit is listed on Thule’s website as suitable for my 2021 Prius Prime but after hours of trying to fit it I gave up. This is the first review for the kit on a 2021 Prius Prime, as far as I can tell. I couldn’t find any others anywhere. Both the front and back clamps are too short. Each has a peg that fits nicely into a factory-drilled hole in the door jamb, but they can’t be positioned to fit properly into the rain-gutter groove on the roof. They’re about 5 mm too short. The result is that during tightening the rubber pad pulls out of the groove and is no longer secured into place. I tried adjusting the side-to-side distance on the Evo Wingbars several times but there was no way to make the clamps fit. I asked for help from Thule’s website and was told none of the kits fit my Prius model; ironically, I was told to see proof on Thule’s fitmycar link, but there it was, clearly stating that the 5092 kit fits the 2021 Prius Prime!!! The end result of this futile exercise is that I can return the kit and car rack, but that leaves me with no roof rack at all. No other company makes them for Prius. No car rack, no bike rack, which the purpose for the roof rack. Not a happy customer.

I bought these feet to use with the AeroBlade Edge roof rails on my 2020 Alfa Romeo Stelvio. One foot would not stay attached, which I found out the hard way. Fortunately I strapped a box to the rails with ratcheting straps; with a minimum of tension one footing came unseated. I tried reattaching it and it seemed to take, even with the straps taught. However, after driving a little bit at low speed, it came unseated again. I reattached it again and made it to my destination, driving very slowly, but it was coming unseated again. Had I been driving faster, or going farther, or been less lucky/vigilant, it could have caused an accident. I only had this problem with one out of four feet, but it was visually no different from any of the others, so either there's some QA flaw here or there's a design flaw.Aside from the design/quality/safety problem, it was a bit shocking how poorly designed, made, and even packaged these things were for a supposedly premium product. The feet (and the rails) came in thin, cheap cardboard boxes with even worse cardboard padding inside, from which they had come loose and were rattling around and jumbled up. The plastic end caps for the rails were poorly finished and left gaps. The rubber aero strip was just a piece of janky garbage. Sending these back and getting the OEM rails.

Wouldn't recommend ordering this item right now (3/29/18) as the model# inventory mappings are incorrect. I've ordered and had to return the wrong item 3 times now. Very frustrating, and now we've got to make the road trip without the cargo carrier that we need.

Good enough value. Kit works well with our XC60. Had no problems understanding the instructions and fitting them to our car.

Thule, it just works very well. Add on kit for roof bars, easy to attach and fit the roof rails perfectly (Volvo XC60)

.... if they'd just sort the instructions out. Word of advice; search YouTube for How To videos, they'll explain it a lot better.

Very Good Quality

Easy to fit with my existing aero bars, great delivery from Amazon