Has anyone taken off their factory roof rack yet? I took mine off yesterday and 3/4 of the screws holding the clamps down on base were totally stripped on the threads! Im going to call Morristown (where I got the rack) tomorrow, but I am curious if this is pervasive!

 

If you are talking about the threaded studs that the flanged nuts thread onto, the provided torque wrench may not have been used when installing the clamps. You should have recieved a tool kit and instruction booklet with your roof rack.

Definately return to the installing dealer and also review the instruction booklet before you go. The booklet is hard to comprehend on the first install. Yours may have been the first installed at that dealer. I'm sure they will resolve our problem.

 

took my rack off today and one of the nuts is stripped. Anyone have this happen? I take mine off after each use and they are slowly deteriorating.

 

Here too! The nuts are soft brass so I have had one fail on me also. I replaced the original nut with a locking nut and oversized washer. So far so good, but I'm watching the others and would like to get a replacement brass factory washer since I believe I have the technique down on getting the rack on and off the car.

 

Mine were the same. I replaced them with stainless nylock and stainless washers. Works better in addition to being stronger than the silly brass thing.

I suspect they weren't really intended to be installed and removed more than once.

 

Actually they were designed to be taken on and off for each use.

The reason brass nuts were used is so that over zealous people did not damage the other parts of the rack when tightening down the rack. There is a torque wrench supplied with the kit that is supposed to be used. Any more pressure than that is over tightening the nut. Thus the nuts is supposed to strip if tightened to much.

BTW I have had put on and taken off my rack over 200 times and still the brass nuts are in great shape. If the rack is installed properly the first time and taken off and put back on with the proper tools then it should be very easy to do and not cause any major wear on the nut.

 

Gee, I guess I've been chastised.

But the brass nuts that were carefully tightened, first with the 6 n/m "torque" wrench supplied in the kit, and later with a digital torque wrench that measured 6 n/m exactly. After the second or third time, the brass nut began stripping some brass off of the outside of the lip. The threads remained in excellent shape, and they are still in excellent shape, but enough of the brass had been "machined" off by the arms that they tighten against that I was concerned for the viability of the lip and chose to replace it with a material that would ensure that the rack remained solid. Then I carefully tightened the new nuts to the indicated 6 n/m. I have removed and replaced the rack many times (I have never been into tracking how many). The rack remains tight and viable with no issues.

I was unaware that anyone on the board had access to the design engineers at BMW or wherever the rack is made, and accordingly, I was unaware that there was a body of knowledge available to determine the design criteria used by the engineers when they specified the use of the brass nuts.

But then, I appparently was wrong in all of my assumptions given that the rack was apparently never designed to be installed by a buffoon such as myself.

Sorry, I, of course, defer to your superior intellect.