Talk to me about roof bars!

Im thinking about an estate as the next car and am looking to get the roof bars as far apart as possible for sea kayaks etc. I was pretty interested in a Kia Ceed estate but when I went to look at one, I see the mounting holes in the roof rails where the roof bars clip in are pretty close together, barely further apart than some hatchbacks, and nowhere near as far apart as they could be.

This seems to be quite a common issue on other car brands too, however the other day I saw a Ceed estate and the owner had mounted the thule roof bars away from the mounting holes and pretty far apart. The thule roof bars were clamped over the top of the roof rails, but there was nothing on the inside face of the rails

I was intrigued by this, and Ive also seen similar on another make. Are they courting disaster doing this?

Maybe im missing something – are the thule bars secure enough without using the holes in the rails?

I agree that many manufacturers do not consider how far apart roof bars could be too support longer loads.

I *think* that the Kia roof rails are pretty much the same as the ones on our old Seat Ibiza and Leon. You can ignore the two wee ‘locating pins’ and clamp onto the rail direct wherever you want, other than the last few cm where the rails taper down.

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

(Ignore the crappy canoe name, this is the day I bought it)

Thanks Matt, I think you have answered my question 100%!

Funnily enough, my second car on the wish list was a Leon estate , and I was disappointed to see the same little holes on the rails. So that’s cleared that up too

Awesome cheers

I’ve never had an accident with canoe on the roof, but the blue Leon had a full on emergency stop one day with the canoe on the roof and it didn’t move a mm.

That is good to hear.

I had an upright  ww boat rip the roof bars off an old school astra estate in a mega gust on the kessock bridge. The two bar clamps to windward both sheared across the plastic moulding and then everything rotated over the downwind roof rails but stayed attached to the car. Car was dented but nothing major

I reckon the plastic might have weakened in UV but that is guessing really. It was bloody windy!

OK not an estate car, but I have roof bars that protrude either side of the rails and then a Yakima Show Down that I use for my kayak – means I can single-handedly get my kayak on and off the car.

Ha a vitara was also on the list due to the long roof rails!

How long is that boat Dovebiker?

I have a 5 series estate with flush roof rails and Thule bars. It’s my first estate car and wasn’t aware that some estates have mounting holes (the 5 doesn’t). Previous cars have been hatchbacks and saloons with fixed mounting points so no room for manoeuvre.

On the 5, the Thule instructions tell you where to place them (to the mm!) from the front of the rails and then the 2nd bar from the 1st, but now that you mention it they do look stupidly close together for a 5 metre long car! Can’t see any reason you couldn’t place them further apart if needed. The rails are the same profile far beyond where the bars currently are.

Is it not that the 3′ specification is for all Thule products that sit on the roof bars rather than all products?

I suspect Thule roof boxes are designed for certain lengths between the bars (24-36″), but when I’m moving longer stuff I space them further.

V60 here, only limitation I have is the roof is much wider at the front, so my Mondeo roof bars need the end caps off to fit the v60 dedicated feet.

I have a set of the Atera universal bars for flat rails, I just slid them back until the roof box didn’t look stupid.

My kayak is 17ft – this was a 100mile trip from Queensferry to Tobermory and I managed it without a front tie-down. The roof rails on the Vitara do taper in width from front to back – the Yakima rack does need to be a certain spacing to make it easy to lift up and down.

I have a kia carens and use the roof bars that clamp on both inside and out, so no need for the pin holes.  I bought them from the roof box co for about 100 quid, rock solid.  I had some before that used the pin holes and they were awful.

The other thing to look at with putting kayaks on cars is the height of the car.

I have a Karitek rack which slides sideways and down to help load kayaks. This was fine on my three previous cars but my current car is lower like a lot of newer cars and the rack ends up very close to the ground which makes it hard to  use.

I don’t have a kayak but I have a Ceed estate with aftermarket clamp on roof bars.

They clamp either side of the rail and are rock solid, had 3 bikes on there no problem up to Scotland and back.

Jesus @dovebiker that alot of extra wind resistance.

Having inflatable sups i use a basket which is ace but it does sit awful high. Kinda wand some extra low racks to mount it on.

Thanks dirkpitt74, that is really useful info

How far apart do you think you could fit the bars at maximum width?