Car purchase blunder/Bike rack question – Page 2 – Chat Forum

ambientcoast · 2021-11-09T14:18:20Z

I’ve had the ‘luxury’ of having a Fiat Ducato van as my ‘car’ for the last 9 years or so. I put extra seats in, I can get a load of bikes in (wheels on), I can sleep in it, it’s got a fridge, etc, etc. However, it’s starting to cost a fair chunk of cash to keep it on the road, parking near home is currently virtually non-existent, and I’m also concerned about the environmental impact of running 2x vehicles given that the van is mostly used for short local trips these days, with the odd day/weekend away with the bike. So, I recently made the decision to offload the van and I’m giving it away over the Christmas break just before its next MOT in January. I’ll have local trips covered with an electric cargo bike on order that I can get the kids on, but the problem is figuring out those days away with my other bike. My plan was just to use my wife’s car which we bought less than a year ago but before I’d decided to get rid of the van. Her car is a C4 Cactus, and I’ve since discovered that the ONLY way to transport a bike on it is to fit a tow bar (multiple quotes coming in at around £650) and obvs buy a tow bar mounted rack (probably >£300 or so). There are zero aftermarket roof bars (they needed to be specified at factory) and there’s no way to fit a rear high mounted rack either (because there’s a stupid plastic bit in the way). So almost a grand just to be able to carry my bike on the car. Bloody hell. That’s if it even fits. The problem is I’m trying to figure out whether a small 2-bike tow bar mounted bike rack will position the bike far enough away from rear of the car so that the ends of my 800mm bars aren’t tapping against the car’s rear window glass. I can’t measure it properly without it all being attached to the car, and I don’t want to spend all that cash just to find out that the car’s too small, or the angle of the rear window is too steep, or the bike’s too big/bars are too wide to be carried that way, if you see what I mean. Is this even a potential problem with tow bar mounted racks? Anyone run into this before? I’m only asking because I also have a 2-bike door mounted carrier on the back of the Ducato and that doesn’t position the bike far enough away from the vehicle to prevent those wide bars from pressing/tapping/scratching against the rear door when I’m driving. We would have bought a different car if I'd known all this. I’m almost thinking that I might as well just buy another flipping van! Any words of wisdom?

Trailseeker

Posts: 739

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"So still at almost £500."

No, £293 all in & I only got the coding done to shut parking sensors up when reversing.

Posted : 10/11/2021 9:09 am

fazzini

Posts: 3105

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There was a guy on another thread near Scotch Corner with a Thule tow bar rack available for £50. I'm tempted myself, but already have bars and carriers for the roof, and when the towball is in use its usually cos there's a ton and half of caravan hanging off the back of the car
Edit - this one I think but my work laptop is not playing nicely with STW today...maybe my boss has realised I'm never off this site :0
https://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/recommend-me-a-towbar-mounted-bike-carrier/

Posted : 10/11/2021 9:29 am

ambientcoast

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Topic starter

I’ve seen lots of trashed bikes, racks and cars by very sensible people “who forgot”

With that full length glass roof, I reckon I stand a better chance than most of remembering there's a bike up there!

MOT the van and sell it rather than giving it away

I've roughly priced up the work it'll need and, when you factor in the hassle and time, I'm not sure I'll be that far ahead tbh.

So check the outside of the roof to see what is there.

Yeah, I did that first - zero sign of anything that looks like a fixing point for rails. It's mostly glass with just a small section of metal in front and behind - no plastic covers, no mounting points, etc.

Posted : 10/11/2021 10:21 am

gingerflash

Posts: 316

Full Member

"it’s a full glass roof from front to back and that’s (Seasucker) not something I’d want to risk"

It looks like there's enough metal in front of the glass to secure the front of the rack, with only the rear of the rack on the glass (We used to do this on an X-Trail with a big panoramic glass roof.

Seasucker say that the racks are fine on glass, and I'd think that was something they will have tested and can be relied upon.

"Will SeaSucker racks work on a glass or panoramic roof?
Absolutely - glass roofs are great surfaces to attach SeaSuckers to. In fact, the vacuum cup technology was originally invented to carry big sheets of glass and other solid-surface materials, so they work great on glass"

However, as said above, there seems to be a pretty easy solution - roof rails.

Posted : 10/11/2021 11:16 am

Sandwich

Posts: 13349

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Yeah, but that means taking out all the headlining and drilling the roof, surely?

How close are you to @molgrips? He likes a challenge!

Posted : 10/11/2021 12:10 pm

Trailseeker

Posts: 739

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Halfords in Exeter had a few Thule bike racks for 50% off with damaged packaging yesterday.

Posted : 17/11/2021 10:24 am

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