Mounting a Thule Criterium Rooftop Bike Rack on a 2016 BMW X3 with OEM/Factory Crossbars

Updated 11/30/2017 | Published 11/28/2017

Question:

I have a Thule Criterion bike rack from about 8 years ago and would like to mount it on my 2016 BMW X3 official BMW crossbars. The original u-shaped brackets for the rack are not big enough for the oval bars. It seems like it would be good to get adaptor T-bolts or something like that to slide in the crossbar channel, but the BMW bar channels seem wider than the Channel on Thule racks. Is there some type of adaptor that will work?

asked by: Lance L

Expert Reply:

You'll use the XAdapter 8 kit, part # XADAPT8 to replace your mounting hardware with channel mounting bolts. Because of the cut and shaping of the bars, the channels can look different, but tend to end up within an 1/8-inch of each other in terms of size, and the bolts tighten to the top of the channel when they're properly installed, so your width ends up not mattering much in the end.

expert reply by: Jacob W