Bike Rack Order Today

[cowcatcher]

I need to get this done before the day is out but I need your advice. I have decided on the swing away instead of the fold down style now I need to figure which manufacture makes the best bike holder and oberall product.

It looks like in the swingaway the Thule is the most thoughtfully designed but the Allen looks good too and much cheaper. Yakima looks like it is OK but highest priced and perhaps not as much thoughtful engineering.

What's your experience?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Amarony]

Thule

I have the Thule Spare Me that mounts on the spare tire mount. Works great for me, high quality. No experience with hitch mounts though.....

 

[Bennett]

I've got a Yakima hitch mount and love it. Very solid.

I had to make a hitch extension out of some steel though. You can buy hitch extensions, but I custom made mine with a nut welded inside so that I could synch it tight in the hitch to avoid rattles.

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Bennett

 

[cowcatcher]

I've got a Yakima hitch mount and love it. Very solid.

I had to make a hitch extension out of some steel though. You can buy hitch extensions, but I custom made mine with a nut welded inside so that I could synch it tight in the hitch to avoid rattles.


Bennett

I asked this here months back Bennett and you posted yours then too. It does look nice but don't you need to unload it each time you need something out of the back?

I considered the one that mounts on the spare too but I have an '89 Chev extended cab PU. The doors are so big and the design so poor that I need to periodically bend them back in place to get them to latch. The hinges are welded on too. Can't imagine that hanging all that weight on the spare is a good plan.

 

[Bennett]

I just pop open the glass and I grab stuff out that way. Seems to work ok.

Actually if you bought a drop down hitch extension the bike rack has a built in pivot, so you could open the gate.

Bennett

 

[DavidG]

hitch bike rack issue

I just bought a Thule hitch bike rack. It seemed more secure than a spare tire rack to me.

There is an issue with some hitch racks. Although Thule advertises the Hitching Post Pro 936XT as compatible with the Jeep Liberty, the vertical part of the fixed L blocks the tire from opening or closing the gate. Otherwise, the gate would clear the fold down main bar. Perhaps an extension would allow it to clear, but that could scrape on the ground since it would be further from the back wheels.

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[cowcatcher]

Darn, I was going to buy it Sunday for REI. I liked the built in cable lock!

Bennett had convinced me that I didn't need the swing away. Perhaps I am back to the swing away (it also has the cable lock) or the Yakima. It is interesting that it is long enough to mount without and extender, the Yakima is not. I didn't realize that either. If the swing away doesn't need and extender or a lock that makes the higher end price began to look better.

Thanks for the post David.

 

[DavidG]

I think I am going to get the drop down hitch extender that Bennett mentioned. I am a little annoyed that Thule advertised the rack as compatible when it isn't completely. Even without that, the Thule allows the rear gate window to open.

 

[cowcatcher]

Perhaps I missed something on the "drop down". If you look at Bennett's pics it looks like his Yakima has the same issues as the Thule. Bennett needed an extender with the Yakima to even clear the tire at all. The Thule seems to clear it but will not allow the door to open.

His Yakima is too high to allow the door to swing too. Basically, if you choose the drop down all you can do is open the window, but you could do that with any receiver hitch rack, so the drop down is a dollar option with little or no value. I guess I neeed to now consider the cost savings of the solid mount versus the swing away convenience.

Your Thule is still the best buy for the added features and the fact that you don't need the extender to get it past the spare.

 

[Bennett]

Perhaps I missed something on the "drop down". If you look at Bennett's pics it looks like his Yakima has the same issues as the Thule. Bennett needed an extender with the Yakima to even clear the tire at all. The Thule seems to clear it but will not allow the door to open.

His Yakima is too high to allow the door to swing too. Basically, if you choose the drop down all you can do is open the window, but you could do that with any receiver hitch rack, so the drop down is a dollar option with little or no value. I guess I neeed to now consider the cost savings of the solid mount versus the swing away convenience.

Your Thule is still the best buy for the added features and the fact that you don't need the extender to get it past the spare.

Yea it does need an extender, but it appears the thule one doesn't need it at at all, maybe that's what they meant by "liberty compatible"

If you could drop the hitch down, the gate would swing a little bit.. enough to get bigger things out.

hmmm
Bennett

 

[cowcatcher]

OK, I spent the morning doing research on the web.

YAKIMA - If you want a receiver hitch then you will need an extender but the value of the swing down versus the cost is questionable as the gate would still just barely swing open as the vertical rise on the stinger is too high to clear the tire. The swing away style poses the same issue as it uses the same stinger as the fold down. A custom solution would be to fabricate your own stinger of proper length and height but then the bikes might be carried too low and drag.

THULE - The Thule advantage is a proper length stinger (about 3" longer than the Yakima) but again the vertical part of the stinger is too tall to clear the tire so there is no advantage in the fold down. The same is true of the swing away style as it uses the same stinger. Again the solution would be to fabricate your own stinger with the possibility that the bikes would hang too low and possibly drag.

ALLEN - Again it appears the the stinger height may be too tall to clear the tire. I can't find dimensions on the length of the stinger so I don't know about the need for an extender. I have sent an email to Allen to find out thier stinger length for the regular racks and the clearance on the swing away style.

 

[k21975]

My brother works for Thule and he bought me this one...

http://www.thuleracks.com/thule/product.asp?dept_id=8&sku=916

He is droping it off next weekend, now I just need to get a hitch. It doesn't have the upright post to block the door from opening and it folds up for storage. I downloaded the install manual and it says it needs 4.5" of clearance from the hitch bolt to the back of the rack when folded. I have a good feeling we don't have that little of space. So I just won't be able to fold it up, but it should allow me to open the back.

Does anyone know the distance from their hitch bolt to the back of the tire?

 

[Bennett]

Took some searching, but I found it..

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http://www.drawtite-hitches.com/towbars/hitch_equip.html

Pretty cool huh? This would work great with a Yakima.

Bennett

 

[cowcatcher]

Cool. Probably even better on the Thule. It does reduce hitch capacity to 100 lbs.

 

[cowcatcher]

My brother works for Thule and he bought me this one...

http://www.thuleracks.com/thule/product.asp?dept_id=8&sku=916

He is droping it off next weekend, now I just need to get a hitch. It doesn't have the upright post to block the door from opening and it folds up for storage. I downloaded the install manual and it says it needs 4.5" of clearance from the hitch bolt to the back of the rack when folded. I have a good feeling we don't have that little of space. So I just won't be able to fold it up, but it should allow me to open the back.

Does anyone know the distance from their hitch bolt to the back of the tire?

Let us know how this works out. It seems to me that you will still have an issue with the spare without an extender as the space between the hitch bolt and th back of the spare is something like 10". I believe the Yakima stinger is around 7" and the Thule is around 10". That is why David doesn't need an extender and Bennett does.

 

[Bennett]

Cool. Probably even better on the Thule. It does reduce hitch capacity to 100 lbs.

Well you have to remember the thule is longer than the yakima and the farther you go out it'll bounce more, because there is more leverage the farther you go out.

Also, by looking at the hitch extender it looks really beefy and I don't think weight would be concerned, because they are rating it if a trailer was connected to it. Which creates considerable more force on it.

Bennett

 

[cowcatcher]

Yup, I got to thinking that it may be even a better solution for the Yakima as it drops it and extends it possibly killing two birds. Is 4" too much drop though? Would the bikes drag?

Right now it looks like the best solution would be the Thule if you fabricated a new stinger with about a 1" greater drop as it looks from David's photo like the Thule only misses by about 1". Of course this would vary if you had a larger tires.

WAIT!!!!! Didn't I see a topic somewhere here or on LOST that discussed an adapter to the spare that raised the larger spare so it would not hit the bumper but still allow the flipper to open? Seems like that might work with the Thule too if it didn't push the spare back much.

 

[cowcatcher]

David,

Could the Thule be assembled with the stinger turned 180 degrees?

Thanks!

 

[k21975]

You mean this?

http://www.rocky-road.com/kjtirespace.html

 

[Bennett]

Yup, I got to thinking that it may be even a better solution for the Yakima as it drops it and extends it possibly killing two birds. Is 4" too much drop though? Would the bikes drag?

ya know i don't think it would drag, because some people mount these carriers on their cars, which sit even lower. I actually use a 4" drop hitch to pull my seadoo and it never hit anything, but as far as the bikes you'd have to go almost vertically up a hill to make them even come close to touching the ground...

I'll go out and do some measuresments on my Yakima... I'm kind of interested in buying that drop and extension...

Bennett