Thule Hitch Bike Racks Review - 2015 Toyota Sienna

Review of the Thule Hitch Bike Racks on a 2015 Toyota Sienna

Today at our 2015 Toyota Sienna, we're doing a test fit of the Thule Vertex Swinging 4 bike rack as hanging-style. That part number is TH9031XT. I have the bike on our rack and I have the rack hooked up to our vehicle. I'm just going to show you a few items here. Like I said, this is a swinging bike rack, so I'm going to show you how we do that. I'm going to pull the T-pin here, set it off to the side. Then I'll come back here, black knob here then I'm loosening that mast.

That's loosened now we can pull up on our T-pin here, swing it out. As we're swinging it out, we want to start swinging it back in, so we click here. Now we can swing it all the way out, put in our T-pin. There we go. That's how we do it.

When the bike rack is in this position, you can get in an out of the back of you hatch, so if you need to put anything in, or take anything out, you have plenty of room. Like I said, over here, we're just going to show you a few measurements. Say you park on the curb and you want to know how far it is so you don't damage your car or your bike rack. From the quarter panel, out to our cradle arms, I'm looking at approximately 24 inches. Now from the quarter panel to the middle right handle bars, I'm looking at 5 1/2 inches there. Just remember when you're parking on the curb, you don't what to be too close so you don't hit any street signs or mailboxes, so you don't damage your bike or your bike rack itself. We're going to go ahead and put it back in the regular position, so pull the T-pin here and you start swinging it.

When it gets about right here, go ahead and pull the T-pin here. I'm going to swing the bike around. Then you start swinging all the way around. There we go. I might have to bring that out, the T-pin was in the way.

That's lined up, we want to put our T-pin back in here, come back here, tighten this up. Now we can go over the rest of the bike rack itself. We have 3 straps that hold down our bike. We have 2 up top, 1 to the side which is our anti-sway strap. We're going to go ahead and take the one off the top first. Then we're going to take the one off the side, the side anti-sway strap. Now we can remove our bike, set it off to the side. I would say get in the good habit to replace your straps, so you don't lose them, or damage them. We're going to do that first. Now it's time to take more measurements to show you the overall length on the back of our vehicle, what we added. From the bumper all the way up to our cradle arms, I'll check this again, I'm looking at 34 inches there. Our closest point, will be at the black knob here and that's 4 inches. Then for our ground clearance, I'm looking at 10 1/2 inches. The cradle arms do come down, so how we do that . we have a grey lever here, we're going to pull up, it actually brings the arms down, make it lock in position. Now we can take one more measurement, just to show you overall distance. I'm looking at 11 inches now. One more thing with the bike rack, it's equipped for 2 inch hinges only. It does come with an anti-rattle bolt so it takes takes off some of that play as you're riding down the road. You should have a smooth ride inside and outside. That's going to be it for our look at the Thule Vertex Swinging 4 bike rack hanging-style. Part number again is, TH9031XT on today's 2015 Toyota Sienna. Let's see how it performs on the test course. Here it is on our test course. First it is a slalom area which simulates side to side action, like turning the corners or evasive maneuvers. Next are the alternate speed bumps which show you the twisting action, like hitting a pothole, road debris or hitting a curb. Finally we're at the solid speed bumps, which show you up and down action to simulate a parking garage or coming out of your driveway.