I am a huge fan of Thule’s simple and robust products. However, fitting our old bars to the new car needs a 753 foot and 3033 fitting kit.

Somewhat disappointed in them. A faff to fit (every time it seems) due to two different tools needed, no space to rotate the tools properly and an over long bolt meaning I cannot get a ratchet in for speed.

The feet seem to rest as much on (paint) roof than the hidden rails, and unless they are *perfectly* set, you cannot put the locking covers on the top. A reset requires undoing two (different tools needed) bolts.

Add to this the Galaxy hidden rails not being perfectly parallel, so increasing faffage.

I looked at them as I took them off tonight, and you can immediately see the (simple) opportunities to improve on things…even to do it tool free like the old ones.

I’m in a similar boat – I’m a fan of Thule kit, but with 4 car changes over the years, I’ve had to buy new everything to make it all fit – so kind of defeats the purpose of having the kit-form…so far every car I’ve owned has needed everything new. Pricing up the kit just now for the Fiesta and I’m looking at around £150 for the bars, the footpack, the fit kit and the short side adapter things (3-door car with no area to attach the rear bars on to).

Just seems overpriced for what it does…which is annoying as they are good bits of kit, but needing to buy new for each car is ridiculous, I’ve a collection of bits now that won’t work on anything else (well anything else I’ve owned or likely to own!).

more the fault of the car manufacturers than thule really

A few years ago almost every estate had proper roof rails and it was easy to use the same bars/foot combo on every car

Now suddenly we have a multitude of ‘hidden’ rails etc and they all take different packs. yet another example (like we needed one) of cars being overdesigned

Get them on eBay DickBarton – they sell well! I have waited a few weeks to get them at a ‘fair’ price second hand.

And agreed – I needed to take a grinder to our bars to elengate the ‘slot’ to allow the feet to move inwards enough on the new car – each bar length has no overlapping of sizing, so meaning more bars sold (unless you have a grinder…). A narrower bar would mean I couldn’t get the canoe and 2 kayaks on very easily as I do now.