Rhino Rack Roof Rack Review - 2016 Mazda CX-5
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Review of the Rhino Rack Roof Rack on a 2016 Mazda CX-5
Today on 2016 Mazda CX-5, we're going to be test fitting the Rhino Roof Rack System consisting of part numbers RRVA118B-2, those are the Rhino Rack Vortex Aero Crossbars, 46 inches long, in black. These also come in silver, as part number RRVA118S-2. We'll also be using part number RRRLKVA, these are the 2500 Series Legs for Vortex Aero Crossbars, and part number DK289 and this is the Custom Fit Kit for the 2500 Series Roof Rack Legs. The Rhino Rack Roof Rack is excellent for carrying accessories ranging from bike racks to cargo baskets to enclosed cargo boxes, as well as kayak carriers, ski carriers and snowboard carriers. The carrying capacity of the 2 bars is going to be 165 pounds, but always double check with your manual to make sure it can withstand that weight. One of the nice things about this system is the fact that it uses fixed points on your roof so you don't have to worry about crossbar measurement or anything like that. The bars themselves have a nice aerodynamic shape to them, so that's going to cut down wind noise and drag while you're driving.
It also comes with locks on the outside. They are going to be secured to your roof once they are installed. Now that we've gone over some of the features, let's go ahead and show you how it gets put together. We have a rear bar partly assembled. Our first step, with a 2500 Series Leg, we need to remove the screw, the backing piece here and this plastic pad.
Let's go ahead and set them aside, but keep them together. Next we'll take this portion here, this piece, the screw and we're going to install them onto our foot. This piece will fit in to our leg and then the piece here will fit in to where that backing plate was. We'll take a screw and a lock nut, put it through that metal piece, and start to tying it down to permanently attach it. We'll take our included tightening tool here, help us out with that. Just tighten it down.
Looks good. Then we'll take a rubber pad and our new foot, push those two together, and attach them to the bottom where they'll just snap in. Then we'll actually slide them into our crossbar. Line up our metal bracket here with the T-slot, like so, and then I'm going to take a measurement here. Normally you would have a strip that you would cut into place and put the measurement in that way so it's a permanent fit. However, for demonstration purposes, we'll just go ahead and measure it out.
You will find these measurements in your instructions so always just double check that. Once you got that we'll go ahead and tighten down that screw. Now our final step is we'll go ahead and put our end caps in place, take our included tool there and lock those in as well. Now coming to the roof here, you'll see there's going to be two points. We're going to go with this one for now and we'll take our screw from our kit, place it in til it's good and tight. Now we can grab our bar and set it into place. We'll just line them up with the post that we installed and set them down. We can start tightening down our screw here to the post that we just installed and this is going to secure to your roof. It also comes with another tightening tool to take care of that as well. We'll be doing this for both sides. All right, when everything's tightened down, our final step is to go ahead and put on our end caps here, which are lockable. Pretty much once you have this installed, it's going to be secured to your roof rack and it will be preventive from theft and tampering. There you have it for the Rhino Rack Roof Rack System on our 2016 Mazda CX-5.
Jacques
9/15/2021
I find it surprising that you don't mention the removal of the CX-5's roof trim piece and that the installation implies the trim piece stays off leaving the ugly gutter exposed....
Les D.
10/13/2021
@Jacques I reviewed the video, and you are right, they don't mention the removal of the roof trim, or the cutting and replacing the roof trim after the crossbars have been installed. In a demonstration video we install the parts then remove them and return to new inventory. For that reason we could not cut the roof trim as the crossbars were not going to remain on the vehicle. I will see if we can have information added showing the trim being removed and a discussion of trimming and replacing. Thank you for catching this.
Info for these parts were:
Test Fit:
Zack K
Video by:
Andrew K
Video by:
Zach D
Video by:
Schuyler H
Video Edited:
Jacob T
Video Edited:
Chris R
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Nelson
5/21/2022
Same here with a 2022 CX5, how to remove plastic , cut it, then place it back somehow and will it stay?