Sorry in advance as I know a lot of this has been done to death, but….

I have a Thule roof carrier on my 5 door Golf, great bit of kit when fitted, however it’s not ideal for the following reasons:
1) I do a fair amount of motorway miles so prefer to put it on and take it off a lot – painful process.
2) Its then a pain to store.
3) The roof is badly scratched (I’ve tried a million and one combinations of tape, cleaning pads, re-alligning, etc)

Am I missing something, or are these common issues? Would fitting it to my other half’s 3 door Clio semi-permanently be any better?

Tried a boot rack a few years ago on previous Golf, but boot shutline was too tight for hook, and also resulted in damage.

Holy Grail would be towbar mount but neither car can take one.

Thanks folks

Have a look on witter-towbars they do both detachable and fixed for the golf mk4 and mk5 and some for the clio range.

Carl

Thanks Carl, but unfortunately the way the exhaust and rear valance sit it’s not possible on the Golf (mk5 Gti Edition 30). Same deal on the rear diffuser/exhaust of the Clio (RS197).

Really needs to be a roof or boot option (or new car of course).

Can you not just put the bikes inside? I’ve had both cars and can comfortably get tow bikes and people in with the wheels off (the bikes).

Probably manage 3 bikes and people in the golf if I thought about it.

Are the bars Thule? I have some VW ones for my car (Jetta)which don’t seem to mark the roof at all.

Collie – Was going to ask if anyone had used VW bars instead of the Thule ones, will maybe try that.