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Designed for use in the Australian Outback, this rugged platform lets you bring whatever gear you might need for your next adventure. Compatible with many Yakima off-road and traditional roof rack accessories.
Features:
Yakima LockNLoad Platform K, 55x49:Videos are provided as a guide only. Refer to manufacturer installation instructions and specs for complete information.
Hey everyone, it's Evangeline here at etrailer and today we'll be taking a look at our Yakima SkyLine towers. These are designed for your fixed mounting points, your flush rails, or your track systems. So if the roof of your vehicle looks like this, you probably need these. If you wanna carry around roof mounted accessories like kayaks or ladders or maybe you need to bring a Christmas tree home, you first need a roof rack system. Now this is gonna be the Yakima SkyLine towers for those vehicles that specifically require a custom fit kit for their fixed mounting points. Now if your vehicle does not look like this you might have a naked roof or raised rails.
That's why it's very important before anything to use our fit guide here at etrailer.com. Put your year, make model and then find the right fit for you. And if this is one of them let's take a look at how it works. Etrailer.com also helps you get the full kit for your vehicle because the skyline towers don't work alone you also need the appropriate crossbars as well as the correct fit kit or landing pads for you. But with this, you get a low profile roof rack so it doesn't stick too high up.
You get a heavy duty weight capacity since this is an aluminum roof rack. So usually they have 165 pounds capacity, depends on the vehicle, and you have this very sturdy but also very custom fit kit for your vehicle. That way, no matter what you put on it within reason and wherever you go, you know it's gonna stay there. But my favorite feature about this roof rack is the door design. So you pinch on the door to open it and that's it.
Just like that, you can lift the whole roof rack off of your roof. When you need to install it, you just pop it right back on. So the height of the tower is about 3 1/2" from your fixed mounting point to the top of the tower. The actual height can change depending on what crossbars you have and what rails you have, but compared to a lot of the other flush mounted crossbars and roof racks, it's just very low to the roof. Now with this style of a rack though, you are limited to the fixed mounting points or the flush rails of your vehicle.
So wherever they are, that's how much crossbar spread you get. For example, ours is set to 28" apart. On the other hand, if you have an aggressive tilt to your roof, you can actually adjust this up to six degrees forward or six degrees backward to help even out the playing field. Now I like to leave my roof rack on my vehicle and Yakima is pretty known for its durability. So the SkyLine towers are made of glass reinforced plastic, aluminum, stainless steel and elastomer. So all that is combined to help them stay strong even if you leave them on all day, all year. But if you do need to take off your roof rack you also have a feature to make it more low profile. Start by flipping both doors open and then you can lift the roof rack up and off of your roof. This way you can store it inside of your garage or in your house. You can leave your base on your roof rails. All you need to do is cover them with the included cover and that's it. You're done. The covered bases sit about 2" high up off of your fixed mounting point and makes for a much more low profile look. Your towers will have everything you need to install them which really is just one tool. And your fit kit has the hardware needed to undo the factory mounting points on your vehicle or for your track system if that's what you have. Now, that install process is extremely simple. Let's take a look at it. So these are what your towers look like when they are not on your roof. So they come all assembled in the box. All you need to do is get the appropriate landing pads for your vehicle. These landing pads can look different depending on your car and that's why it's very important to use our fit guide to get the right fit for you. You have four towers as well as the torque tool. And depending on your crossbars, you will also get a separate adapter to be used with those specific bars. With your landing pad kits, you'll get a part that fits your specific vehicle. You will get the hardware needed to install that part and you will have the base as well as the base cover. So if the towers are not on your vehicle you could just cover that base pad and take the cover off to install the tower. Here's an example of how the landing pad can be used depending on your cars. So you have a factory mounting point in this specific flush rail. So the pad goes over that hole and then you're gonna get your base which goes on top of that pad. And then you have a bolt with split washer and flat washer which is used to tighten down those two pieces to your car. The torque tool for your towers comes in handy whenever you're tightening down those bolts because it has a setting for tension. Once you get enough tension, it automatically clicks and prevents you from over tightening. Now to set up your tower for your crossbars there's different adaptor pieces. We're using the one for the JetStream crossbars. So we start by pushing in this plate into the tower. So you are gonna hear some clicks and that's how you know it's secure. Now we're gonna open up the tower door. So this involves pinching the door and pulling. Be careful because if you slide your fingers forward it doesn't feel as good. But with the door open, you can then loosen this bolt up front. It says to do it eight times. I just go until the bolt underneath is visible so you can see underneath what I mean. Notice how you have this little bolt head hiding around. You're gonna try to get at it with the tool. You can see how I do have access. That means as we flip this tower back over I can put this plate up top and then I can tighten down and thread onto that plate. With adapter and plate, this can now slide into your crossbar. For other adapters, they're designed to slide over or around your crossbar. With this specific style, I do recommend for the initial slide making sure that this is loose, but after that even if you have it fully tightened down you'll still be able to slowly adjust it on the crossbar. So with the towers on you're then ready to put this onto your roof. Now what I do is I just kind of roughly measure how far apart our landing pads are and that's when I can measure on the towers the distance apart they roughly need to be, in my case, 43 1/2. You could be off by 1/2" or so 'cause you can still move them. Also, supposedly this is when you put the rubber pieces inside of your crossbars. I do that after I've already installed them onto the roof. I take them back off and then I push them in so that I know exactly where the towers will be sitting. Make sure your towers are torqued down at their bottom bolt. Do that for both sides before installing. This is a lot easier with a friend on the other side but still doable with one person. So leave those doors open so that you can gently place them onto your roof. The bottom bracket with the door open fits onto your base so see how that just pushes into place. And then to secure it, just push that door close and you've got a sturdy fit. If you're using Yakima same key system lock cores, this is a time to switch them out on your towers. But other than that, just double check that all the towers are strong and secure and everything is sturdy. And that's it for the install of your roof rack. That right there was a look at the Yakima SkyLine towers for your Yakima crossbars for when you have vehicles that have fixed mounting points, flush rails or track systems.
Average Customer Rating: 4.9 out of 5 stars (50 Customer Reviews)
Designed for use in the Australian Outback, this rugged platform lets you bring whatever gear you might need for your next adventure. Compatible with many Yakima off-road and traditional roof rack accessories.Fit our Subaru Forester perfectly. Install was a breeze. For the money I wish they came with the core locks.
Very nice quality towers. Very heavy duty! They have a cool "snap" on / off mechanism for quick removal and installation.
You guys provide great products and excellent customer service.
Thanks
These crossbars were easy to install and adjust. Be sure to get all the pieces you need. There is no mention of the Landing Pads necessary to use these.
My 2011 Outback came with a roof rack not really hardy enough for my Mad River canoe. So, I purchased a Yakama system from etrailer.com All contacts with them were informative and helpful though shipping was a little slow The towers and bars mounted easily. . .instructions were clear and You Tube has some nice video of the installation. I had a wind deflector and canoe brackets from another car and they adapted with just a little fooling around. The anchor strap kit #04046 mounted easily under the hood to give me attachment points on the front. I screwed in the towing hook to the rear bumper and got the bow/stern tie-downs #04031 to secure the canoe. Seems solid.
Yakima SkyLine Towers are well-designed and well-executed. They easily fit into the Yakima Landing Pads and form a tight fit when closed. And they also fit nicely into the Yakima JetStream Crossbars when following the Yakima instruction manual and various YouTube videos. I did run into a snag at first where I found the rubber seal on one SkyLine Tower getting caught on the JetStream Crossbar track, but after that I was careful not to let that happen with the other towers.
I find the appearance of the Yakima SkyLine Towers to match their level of quality in materials and design.
Great company. Fast delivery.
Got another Subaru Outback and needed more roof rack capacity than the stock rack. The Yakima system fit the bill perfectly. The only hick-up has been the landing pad covers. Their click in holders need to be a little bit more robust. I have had a couple of them blow out. I will give etrailer.com 6 stars for their customer service.
These really look so much better then the factory racks! Easy to install. Easy to order! Great product!
Love the Yakima LocknLoad 55x49 Platform.. would have been nicer if it was just a few inches longer. Fits really well on the 2019 Grand Cherokee.. and looks even better but at highway speeds (60mph+) you will hear it up there... I've also noticed .5 mpg less which is no biggie...I didn't think the Landing Pads (18) were very stable but once in place.. its rock solid!
It was exactly what I ordered
I am going to include the Landing Pads, Skyline Towers, LockNLoad adapters, and Pivoting Mounts that are all required for my vehicle in this review of the 84" x 54" LockNLoad Platform. First, I had done months of research trying to figure out what would work and meet my needs for a 2008 GMC Yukon XL. Without the help of etrailer's agent, Ashley, I'd probably still be trying to figure things out! Ashley was patient and thorough, she made sure I had all the parts I needed for a fairly complex (and large!)project. I cannot thank her enough!
On to the assembly and installation: Ashley confirmed that following instructions was key to efficient building - I found that combining online instructions with the included hard copies worked best. As an example, the online fastener images and descriptions are far better than the paper ones. Then, having the paper instructions in hand made "in the moment" progress much faster. All of the Yakima parts fit together perfectly, and by methodically following the instructions (I cannot stress this enough!), including pre assembling Landing Pads, Towers, and Pivoting Mounts, there was no need to backtrack. Once I had a day to devote to the project, everything went very smoothly. Placing the large Platform on the mounts does require two people, but the rest was easy for one fairly handy person to accomplish. Making adjustments to be sure the Platform is centered and square to the roof took some time but it's worth it in the end. Again, thanks to etrailer and particularly Ashley! It was a pleasure doing business with you!
Subaru stock roof rack was too low to accommodate a Roofnest. These landing pads towers work great and hold the Roofnest very tight when driving down the highway.
Rapid turn around from order to shipping. Product was a advertised. Test will take place transporting my kayak on a 10 hour jaunt in a few days.
Fit exactly as promised. Service was fa st.
Thanks!
Love it.
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