Yakima FullTilt Hitch Bike Racks Review - 2016 Subaru Outback Wagon

Review of the Yakima FullTilt Hitch Bike Racks on a 2016 Subaru Outback Wagon

Today on our 2016 Subaru Outback Wagon we're test fitting the Yakima FullTilt. This a hanging style tilting 4 bike rack. It's been designed so we can use it with inch and a 1/4 or with 2 inch hitches. The part number on it is Y02462. This rack has a really neat cradle system. Basically, the arms create the cradles for us. They're nice and soft, plenty of areas where you can see for that top tube to ride in.

Then we're going to have three zip strips that are going to hold it into place. For these we just pinch in on the two levers. We'll be able to pull them right out. You can see we've got an anti-sway cradle here on the back. It does a good job to prevent front-to-back and side-to-side ...

I'm sorry, just front-to-back movement. It doesn't do much for side-to-side, that's where our top straps come in. Those release the same way. Just pinch in our two levers, we can pull them right on out. You can leave half of them in, take them out fully, whatever you want to do there. The thing I like about the cradles is how compact they are.

It allows for easy on and off with bikes with different styles of frames. Some of them can hang up when you're trying to put them on and this just doesn't allow it. It's nice. Get our zip strips slid back in there. Just like that.

The cradles will also move forward and backward. You just have to pull that one in. That allows it to slide. Then when you move that cradle back out. That's going to hold that position so we don't have to worry about it. Overall the FullTilt is going to add about 35 and 1/2 inches to the back of the Subaru when fully extended but if we pull the red lever located right there on the top, we can rotate it down into its stored position. In this position, 9 and 1/2 inches is all we're really adding so it's nice and compact heavy duty 4 bike rack. Ground clearance at the bottom of our protected fin is going to be about 11 and 1/2 inches. At its closest point before it'd make contact with our vehicle it's going to be about 3 and 1/2 inches away, however, we wouldn't be able to slide it in all the way with the really neat lock system that they've got. For access into the cargo area there's a black lever right here on the rear. It's where the tilting aspect is going to come in. It allows us to tilt it down and out of the way to get our cargo in or out of there that we might need. Also, on the back side there's going to be an integrated cable lock. This slides right out as you can see. It goes right out to the end of our cradle arms and secures right over the top of our bikes so we keep so we can keep everything on our rack and when we get to where we're going we'll have everything we need. We'll just slide that back in. It's made to fit in the pocket right there. It's nice and convenient. To get our rack back ready to head down the road just lift up on that mast until that lever clicks into place. Here on the back you're going to see a large red triangle shape. This is going to allow us to tighten up the anti-rattle device that's inside of the rack. There's a key hole there as well as right in the end of the mast where a lock goes. On this side, actually. Right in the end of the cradle arm where our other lock goes. Not only can we lock the bikes to the rack, we're also going to be able to lock the rack to the car so it's not going to go anywhere either. The gray button here on the side, we push that in as we slide our rack into position. The triangle at the end is going to come to a stop. Then I like to just pull back on the rack until it comes to its stopping point. Tighten up the handle and that's where we get that nice, stable ride. No tools required. Now that we've had a good look at the Yakima FullTilt, we've seen how it looks on the back of our 2016 Subaru Outback Wagon, let's take a look and see how it performed when they took it out to the test course. Here on our test course we'll start by going through the slalom. This is going to show us the side-to-side action. This simulates turning corners or evasively maneuvering. Once we get to the alternating speed bumps we'll see the twisting action. This will simulate hitting a curb or a pothole or driving over uneven pavement. Once we get to the full speed bumps we'll see the up and down action. This will be just like driving in and out of a parking lot, parking garage or driveway. .