To see if this custom-fit item will work for you please tell us what vehicle you'll use it with.
This Thule roof rack lets you carry cargo and gear on your vehicle. Aerodynamic crossbars with split rubber strips in top channels work with channel-mount and clamp-on accessories. Installs on your vehicle's naked roof.
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Alternate Instructions
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Videos are provided as a guide only. Refer to manufacturer installation instructions and specs for complete information.
Hey everybody, how's it going Today we're gonna be going over and showing you how to install the Thule WingBar Evo crossbar system here on a 2021 Mazda MX-5 with bare roof. Now I personally think it looks really well with this vehicle here, and particularly the black crossbars due to the darker paint scheme we do have on the vehicle. But if you have a lighter paint scheme, or you just prefer the lighter crossbar option, this system is available with silver crossbars as well. This system here, the wing bars, these are an arrow shaped crossbar. So there's a few different arrow shaped crossbar options on the market, but what I think Thule does really well is that they kind of go one step further. The shape or the contour of our crossbars here mimics an airplane wing.
Therefore it's gonna provide us with the best possible aerodynamics, which is gonna help save our fuel, and it's also gonna ensure we get the least amount of wind noise possible. So something else you'll notice about these crossbars, if we flip open the end cap here, you can see we have a nice integrated channel running throughout the crossbar. Now, what this does is, it allows us to use those channel mounted accessories, which are much easier to install than the ones that wrap around the crossbars. They also don't require near as much clearance between the top of the roof and the bottom of the crossbar, so you can have a more low-profile design and fit. So there's a few different types of roof rack systems on the market within each brand.
Some of them have the flushed crossbars, meaning the length of the crossbar stops up and mounting feet, and some of them have the overhang, which is what we have here. In regards to those accessories, the sky is really the limit. There's pretty much a carrier to secure pretty much anything you want to the roof of your vehicle. We have cargo box if we have some delicate cargo that we need to store outside the vehicle but we still want to protect it, we have cargo baskets for some of those less delicate items that we just need space to store, or if we want to hit the trails, we could easily attach a roof-mounted bike rack, and then another popular option is to carry our kayaks and canoes. We have plenty of water sport carriers for those.
Make sure you check out our selection here at Etrailer. In regards to our weight capacity, chances are if you're looking for this, you've probably seen a few different figures. And the reason for that is the crossbars and the mounting feet are usually rated separately. there's several other constraints such as the vehicle roof strength, but that really should be more than enough than what you're looking to do. If your CX-5 comes with a moon slash sunroof, thankfully we're gonna be able to open this with our roof rack installed.
The first step of our installation, we're gonna be getting everything out in front of us here so we can look at all of our components. So the first component is the crossbar. So this is what our crossbar looks like. It's gonna be available in two different colors, black and silver. So in order to get the correct orientation of the crossbar, you're gonna be looking at the end of it. So these crossbars are shaped like an airplane wing, so this is gonna give you an indication of which way faces forward. So the larger surface here is gonna be facing, the larger rounded surface is gonna be facing forward of the vehicle. Whereas the backside, where it tapers off, is gonna be facing towards the rear. So once we've established that, we'll look at our mounting feet next. So here's what our mounting feet look like. Now, there's two different parts to the mounting feet here, we have the actual base and then we have the covers. So the covers come pre-installed with a plastic lock core. You can swap these out for metal lock cores that use keys if you'd like. Those lock cores, however, are sold separately. And then finally we have the fit kit. Now, the fit kit is composed of two components as well. We have the rubber pads here, which install on the bottom of the foot, and then we have the car clips here, which also install in the feet. And these are what grip around the door channels. So those are our three main components, the fit kit, the mounting feet, and the crossbars. Once we've identified everything, what we're gonna do is, we can start with the front or the rear, I recommend starting with the front, we've already got our front one on, so we're gonna be installing the rear. You want to make sure in your kit here that you pay attention to the numbers on these little pads here, because there are numbered differently. The front two pads have a different number than the rear two pads. So since we're gonna be doing the rear, we're gonna be grabbing the pads labeled 204. So each of these are labeled 204. I believe that is two different numbers for the front. And then finally, as far as our clips go, we do need to pay attention to the numbers on these as well 'cause they're different for the front and rear. You can see ones, the ones that we have here, are gonna be 153. So these are both gonna be 153. What we're gonna do next is we're going to flip our crossbar over. And if we look on the underside here, you're gonna see we have these little adjusters. So in your instructions, they're gonna give you a specific measurement to set these to, whether we're working on the front or the rear. The rear ones are set up to 38. So it's kind of hard to see, but those are all numbered in there. You can see we have the 38 at the bottom and we want to line up with that there. We're gonna do that on each side. Next we're gonna grab our mounting foot, and then one of our rubber pads, and it only goes on one way so it shouldn't be that difficult, but we're just gonna line up all the grooves and then work our way around, pressing it into place. It can be kind of tricky to get on there, but it can only go on one way. So we need to install the rubber pads on both of our rear mounting feet. And once we get our pads installed, we're gonna take our clips here, these are pretty easy to install, you just want to make sure that the opened end of the clip is gonna be facing in, but you'll just simply insert it and lock it into place. And again, they can only be installed one way, so you really can't get it wrong. But now that we have both of our mounting feet set up, we're ready to begin installing them on the crossbar. So we need to make sure that the outside the cover gets installed onto is facing out of the crossbar. And then what we're gonna do is we're gonna compress the clip here against the inside of the foot, and then we should be able to slide it into the channels on the end of a crossbar. And we're gonna slide it up until we get to the stop there that we pre-set earlier. We may go a little bit too far, that's fine, we'll just adjust it so we're back at our mark. Once we get that on there, I'll go ahead and do that same thing for the other one as well. Now we can install our end caps here. If we flip open the cover, there's gonna be an L for left and an R for right, and those are gonna tell us which side of the crossbar it's gonna be installed on. And just simply line those up, and then you can hit them the rest of the way on. Now, in your kit here, you're also gonna get some stickers. So we have these four black stickers here. We can place these on the feet, the front, left, and right, and then the rear, left, and right. So this is gonna let us know, basically when we take it back off the vehicle, where those needs to go. So as you can see here, we already have our front crossbar assembly installed. So since we didn't show you that, we will show you how to get the proper position. So what we're gonna do for this front crossbar here, we're gonna be measuring from the spot where the windshield meets the roof line, we're gonna be measuring forward 8 7/8 inches, and we're gonna butt our mounting foot up with that measurement there, and that's gonna tell us the correct location for the front crossbar assembly. Now what we're gonna do is we're gonna be measuring from the front side of the front crossbar, we're gonna measure back 27 1/2 inches, and that point is where we're going to be installing the rear crossbar assembly. So you can take a piece of tape or whatever you have, there's some extra stickers maybe with your kit here, and we'll just simply make a mark where we need to install that second crossbar assembly. Now that we have our locations marked, we can take our rear crossbar assembly and gently set it onto the vehicle. You will need to open both of your rear doors in order to get it into position. If you have an extra set of hands, that'll help out as well. Also, something else I would like to note is the mark we made should line up with the front face of our crossbar. Once in position, we can take our tightening tool and we can torque down each of our mounting feet to spec, make sure that we rotate tightening back and forth from side to side. And now all that's left is to take our covers here, insert them into the foot, and if you just have the plastic lock cores, you're just gonna take a flat-head screwdriver to turn that to lock it in place. If you opted to purchase the additional metal lock core separately, you would use your key to lock it into place. And that's gonna do it today for our look and installation of the Thule WingBar Evo crossbar system here on our 2021 Mazda CX-5..
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