Most Popular Hitch Bike Racks for 1997 Ford Explorer

The bike rack came really fast & my hubby put it together easily! Love the way it folds out of the way to get in the back of my Explorer. Very sturdy! Huge thanks to Tammie for all her help with my purchase - she was great!

EASY TO USE. A LOT EASIER THAN I THOUGHT. I USE ON EXPLORER, F250, AND TRAVEL TRAILER. LOVE IT. BUY IT!

After reading several reviews I went with the Swagman for my 2014 Ford Explorer. It worked best for my family, as we have varying sizes of bicycles. Being able to adjust the wheel holders is nice and keeps the bikes secure on the rack. Let me say this is one of the easiest racks to load. Although my kids bikes have the foot pegs on front and back wheels we were still able to load all 4 bikes (2 adults/2 kids) with not much trouble. We did have to put the kids bikes on the outmost mounts due to the foot pegs, but other than that it was no trouble. I have a family of 6 so, we still had to rent two beach bikes when we reached out destination. The bike shop owner commented on the rack and said it was the easiest he had seen to load and unload. Now this is a guy that rents more than 200 bikes out at a time, so he has probably seen his share of bike racks. Overall I would give this rack 5 stars for ease of loading and unloading. If getting in and out of the back of your SUV is must with bikes loaded then this is NOT the rack for you. However, once the bikes are unloaded it is easy to raise and lower the rack to get access to the back hatch. etrailer.com did a great job delivering the rack and answer my questions. I would give them 5 stars!!

Exactly as expected, got it a day early! So far, 2 out of 2 things I have purchased from etrailer.com have been early and very good products. I recommend getting a rubber mallet or hammer and block of wood to assemble the horizontal cross members. It seems that the powder coating made the fit kinda tight (better tight than loose). Other than that assembles pretty easy. Took me about 20 minutes. I love how it holds 4 bikes! It folds up nicely on a 2014 Ford Explorer and is out of the way.

Carrier was fairly easy to assemble and holds 2 bikes nicely! Have not tried yet while traveling with our Explorer to see if any 'wobbling' issue as some other brand bike carriers seem to have but looks like it should be no problem as hitch has clamp that securely holds carrier in place. Overall like product very much so far and it is really nice quality & design!!

EASY TO ASSEMBLE, FIT PERFRECT ON MY FORD EXPLORER, GREAT PRODUCT

The straps are junk and four of them tore within a week of using them. I also almost lost one bike because of the straps. If I could I would return this unit.

We used this bike rack for at least 2 RV trips. The third trip we took we lost one bike off of the rear most rack. Ended up having to replace this bike rack with one from another store. Would only recommend for local trips only.

Extremely well made hitch rack. Fantastic service from etrailer.com

Works well for transporting two 29" wheeled mountain bikes. However, after one year it's starting to rust in several areas (see attached photos), and the front wheel arms are becoming increasingly difficult to raise and lower. Finally the locking cable is extremely rusty as you can see in the attached photo. I'm not sure how durable this rack will be long term.

i received my bike rack last night and tried it out for the first time. I think that so far it is great.. i was even able to get a girls bike to work without using the adapter. shipping was pretty fast also. overall very happy with my experience and the products i ordered. i won't hesitate to order from etrailer again. thank you for the pleasant transaction.

This is a very solid product! I have used it for over a year now and love it! I have had up to 3 bikes on this without a problem and have traveled over 8 hours in the car one way with absolutely no issues. Many other bike racks like this one that I see on other cars look unstable this is not unstable in anyway. I did have to file some of the paint off of the rack to get it to fit in my 1 and 1/4" hitch but once that was done it has been perfect. I also bought the locking hitch bolt which is awesome too.

Decent 4-bike rack for the price. Stable side-to-side with the screw-in hitch pin (2 inch receiver version). Gets some fore-aft rocking over bumps at speed (inherent to the tilting design). Bikes need bungee cords to keep them from swinging (typical for this style of rack). I used this with two bikes, and really struggle to see how four full-size bikes could be added. Maybe if seats were removed? I added bumpers and some padding for the vertical post, and will probably relocate the retainer pin lanyard so the rack can be completely collapsed for storage. A few design improvements for 5 star rating would be: 1 - Add some bumpers for the fully lowered position, 2 -Add some padding on the vertical post for bike contact or accidental vehicle hatch lifting when in the raised position, 3 - Mount the retainer pin lanyard to one of the through-bolts or move the lanyard hole - collapsing this rack chews up the retaining lanyard. etrailer.com service was great - well packaged, and quickly shipped!

Excellent service and fast shipping by etrailer. Bike rack itself was easy to put together and install. It came in with a few scratches. It works well with large bikes. Slight problems started with the smaller bikes. The rack's arms are wide enough to accommodate the bikes, but the slides are not designed for smaller frames. If you have smaller bikes you might have to purchase the bike frame adapter bar for each bike. It's not a huge problem for us since the kids are growing up fast and soon they will have to graduate to the large frame bikes. In the mean time I will have to use extra straps to hold them together.