Any input from anyone who has had these installed. I wantto make sur they don't leak as I street park and my car is outside almost 24/7/ Also how easy are they to remove?

Thanks,
Jeff
San Francisco

 

I had them dealer installed just for that reason! If they ever leak (and they haven't in the 8 months I've had them) the dealer would have to replace any damage they caused.

I can put mine on it less than 60 seconds and I do regularly as I don't keep it on the car. I put it on, throw my bike up, lock it, and away I go!!! I usually forget it's there. I'll be on my way to some great mountain biking spot, carving the twisties, and suddenly look up and see my bike up there, and think....WHOAAAAAAAA!

I think it's great, just my opinon.

 

Thanks that's all the endorsement I need.

Jeff

 

i have a yakima rack that was designed for the mcs. i can also lock it on or take it off in only a few minutes. i am a avid bike racer and put many miles on my mcs with the bikes on top. have had it up to 80 with 2 bikes on top.(was late for a race). the only draw back is that i cant use the sun roof, but also very happy with it. You will need to go to a yakima dealer to get proper fit..... hope this helps. and i dont have those ugly THINGS in my roof

 

>>Any input from anyone who has had these installed. I wantto make sur they don't leak as I street park and my car is outside almost 24/7/ Also how easy are they to remove?
>>
>>Thanks,
>>Jeff
>>San Francisco

I don't have a bike rack -- actually I don't even have my Mini yet and it probably won't arrive until January sometime. But I recently rented a Mini for the weekend mainly to doublecheck whether I could put my bikes completely inside the back end with the rear seatbacks folded. (I really don't like the idea of having bikes hanging off the back of my car where they can be either easily crashed into and/or stolen, or crashing into low tree branches if they are on top of a car.) Surprise ! By taking off BOTH wheels I easily got TWO 21" road bikes COMPLETELY INSIDE back there without even having to slide the two front seats any further forward than my normal driving position. And there still was a little room left over for some other stuff. Just thought some of you might be interested in this.

 

Putting them in the back would be nice too. I purchased a Thule rack that mounts on the pack hatch. It is very sturdy, but does not lock onto anything. My only issue with is it is difficulty to get the top metal straps on and off due to the rear fin. But once it's on it is sturdy. The rack was $130 and will fold down for easy storage.

 

>>I had them dealer installed just for that reason! If they ever leak (and they haven't in the 8 months I've had them) the dealer would have to replace any damage they caused.
>>
>>I can put mine on it less than 60 seconds and I do regularly as I don't keep it on the car. I put it on, throw my bike up, lock it, and away I go!!! I usually forget it's there. I'll be on my way to some great mountain biking spot, carving the twisties, and suddenly look up and see my bike up there, and think....WHOAAAAAAAA!
>>
>>I think it's great, just my opinon.

Can you tell me more about how it's installed and what's left over?

It seems they need to drill some holes in the roof? Or are there existing mounting points on the car, we just can't see them due to the roof?

And I read in the catalog there are caps, so I assume there are some threaded holes installed, and you pop these caps in and out when you aren't using the rack? How visible are they?

Thanks!!

 

I looked into the roof racks too. the gutters on tehse cars seems less than solid, so i liked the idea of the factory rack. I didn't like teh instalation prices I was getting from the L.A. area dealers. THEN I SAW MINI FINI!

Mini Fini is an aftermarket mini accessory supplier, in case you hadn't heard of them. They make a multi-purpose load mount for the rear end of the car (Both MC & MCS). you can plug in a load shelf, a trailer hitch and a bike rack, and they are working on other stuff too. A friend saw the bike rack last weekend and was very impressed with the quality. I want a low mounted rack. Roof rack can be a pain (had a good one on my Volvo before this), hatch racks are bad for car AND bike (had one on my Isuzu Impulse and Rabbit), so I feel a good tilt-away hitch mounted rack is a very good solution, if you can live with the risk of rear-end collision damage to the bike and rack. (I can).

 

I looked into the roof racks too. the gutters on these cars seems less than solid, so I liked the idea of the factory rack. I didn't like the installation prices I was getting from the L.A. area dealers.

THEN I SAW MINI FINI!

Mini Fini is an aftermarket mini accessory supplier, in case you hadn't heard of them. They make a multi-purpose load mount for the rear end of the car (Both MC & MCS). you can plug in a load shelf, a trailer hitch and a bike rack, and they are working on other stuff too. A friend saw the bike rack last weekend and was very impressed with the quality. I want a low mounted rack. Roof rack can be a pain (had a good one on my Volvo before this), hatch racks are bad for car AND bike (had one on my Isuzu Impulse and Rabbit), so I feel a good tilt-away hitch mounted rack is a very good solution, if you can live with the risk of rear-end collision damage to the bike and rack. (I can).

 

Is the MINI FINI available? I spoke with an exec at MINI FINI and they had reached a stumbling (ooo! bad choice of word) block. I seems BMW/MINI is balking at the idea of towing with a MINI and may not want to endorse/carry the product. If that is the case MINI FINI will sell them independent of BMW/MINI. That was to take some discussion and it wouldn't be until November that they would market them. They hadn't determined price but expected it to be in the $300-400 range.

I'd be happy if things moved along sooner for them, except I just recieved a hitch from a custom welder out east who builds race cars.

 

the bike works good if you have the right bike. I have a softirde and a Gary Fisher Joshua neither have down tubes so these don't work with this rack. I got a Thule big mouth with the VW adapter then put on a washer to hold it and this works great. If you get the factory bike holder make sure you have down tubes