Fit Kit for Thule Podium-Style Roof Rack Feet - 3132

Video Transcript for Thule WingBar Evo Crossbars Installation - 2019 Acura MDX

Hey, everybody Zach here at etrailer.com. Today we're taking a look at the Thule EVO WingBar EVO Roof Rack system on our 2019 Acura MDX. Roof racks are a really great way to get a lot of different things on top of your roof. Whether you're looking to carry a cargo box or a roof basket to free up some space inside your vehicle on a trip, or you're looking to carry kayaks, skis and snowboards or bikes, this one's going to be a really good option because we're getting 53 inches of crossbar space. We've got a lot of distance there to get accessories on here, but we also have a 220 pound load capacity. That's pretty significant amount of weight you're putting up on top of your roof.

So you definitely want to check with the owner's manual of your MDX to make sure you're not going over that.And just go with whichever the two numbers is the lowest between your roof and the roof rack system. Now we have the black crossbars installed today but this is also available in silver. So if you have a preference on the color, maybe to match the trim package of your MDX, I personally think the black looks great. I think the silver sometimes can get scuffed up a little bit when you're putting assessors up there, but they're all going to hold up well. I like the finish on it.

I think it does help cut down on scratches cause it kind of has this kind of rougher hammered texture to it, but Thule just makes great stuff. They put a lot of thought and engineering behind their products. So they're going to last a long time and they're going to hold up. Well, I like that this is a custom fit, fit kit down here for our MDX.So this isn't a universal way of attaching this to our flush rails here. So this piece right here is our fit kit.

We don't have any metal actually touching anything. So the metal clip down here is rubber coated. And then we have this rubber piece here that attaches to our flush rail and that's what holds our rapid podium in place. And then that attaches to our crossbar. And you can see we're up off the roof of our MDX quite a bit.

So if you're concerned about your assessors coming down, when you're installing it, if you have a clamp-on style, we've got four inches of space here. Also, if you're concerned about maybe having that panoramic roof or as a sun roof up here, not going to have any issues with that. And then getting into a garage, if you have a low clearance garage from our roof right here we're at about five and a quarter inches of the highest point of our roof rack here.So I was talking about clamp-on style. Another nice thing with this is you can do T slot accessories. Now the old style, and some other manufacturers have it where this wind strip is in here. And what you'd have to do is pull that out, cut it and for your accessory to fit in there. I like that this just, you slide your T slide in there and you get it wherever you want. And then you can just close that back up. You don't have to trim any of that wind strip up there. And another nice thing with these, with this arrow design is that they do cut down on wind noise and drag. Now, anytime you're putting something on your roof, you're definitely going to affect fuel economy. You're definitely going to hear it. But with these, we've got a lot of people that use these here at etrailer.And when we don't have our bikes loaded or kayaks up there, just normal driving down the highway, I can't really hear any whistling that bothers me enough. It's never above my stereo. If you left something open, maybe you're you lost that door there or, something you might hear some noise, but in this state, this is a really good system that doesn't produce much wind noise. Now, when it comes to putting roof racks on top of your vehicle, there's a lot of different little parts that come with it. It can be a little bit intimidating, but this one isn't too bad to put on. So let's just walk you through how we put this one in place. I already have the first one installed. The second one, the rear one is going to install the exact same way, but let's walk through exactly what we have here before we start piecing things together.So we have one of our crossbars and then we have our foot pack for each side and then the cover for each foot pack. And then we have part of our fit kit here and the hardware that will hold everything in place and then the included tools. So I'm going to first get this together. I'm going to flip the crossbar over and just take out these end caps. Now, when you first get yours, they won't be in place. So you can just leave those out for now. But I had mine in here cause we use these a lot around here. Take those out and then I'm going to take my foot pack and you can see these little pieces right here, those are just going to slide right in those channels. And then this piece right here might be out all the way. So we'll just push that in for now. We'll get the same thing on the other side and we'll just replace those end caps to hold those in place.Now that we have the bar prepared, we need to come up here and we need to take out these factory, a little kind of plastic screws and we'll use that included tool to get these out. And those just screw out. I can get those going.And we're going to have two of these on each location where those foot packs are going to go. So two on the driver's side and two on the passenger side, and then you can just store these in your glove box, if you want. We're going to just replace them with some actual hardware that Thule includes in this kit. So the next thing I'm going to do is I'm going to set this down, and just kind of mock this up,You can see this is how it's going to go in place. So I'm going to take them piece right here and we're going to take these bolts right here and just thread them in. So you can see how this is angled inside here at the top. We want that going towards the center of the vehicle. So we'll get those holes lined up and we'll just start threading these in. We'll use that same tool that we use to take those plastic ones out and we can tighten these up. You'll notice that I have a rag that I'm using to keep everything in place. We are using some metal pieces up here. Now these are rubber coated, but the little special hex key that I'm using here, that Thule includes, that will scratch your vehicle if you drop it or these bolts potentially.So I like to have that up there just to provide a little extra safety whenever it comes to protecting the finish of our vehicle. Now this is definitely something you're going to want to hold on to, because this is especially designed for these bolts. You're not going to just be able to put any hex key in there to take those out. So it's kind of a little bit of a safety net for helping cut down on potential theft of your system. So then we'll just take this piece right here and it just slides over. And then we can repeat that same process for the driver's side. Now that we have both those in place, we can grab our crossbar that we we're just working on. And it's a good idea to grab a friend. I couldn't find anybody around the shop. So a tip is to just lay down that rag that we used earlier, just to kind of keep the other side protected just in case you can't reach it all the way.And we're just going to lay this down on the inside of those pieces we just installed. As you can see the bars just gently resting on that fit kit on the opposite side, but see this is where it fits in place and we can grab our hardware and begin inserting it into those holes right there to get it fastened down. Now we'll grab the remaining hardware, the smaller bolts. And I like to pull this little rubber piece back here. You can go through it. I just think it gives a little bit too much stuff in the way there. And we're just going to thread that into that little cylinder on the backside of this foot pack, it has a couple holes that are threaded or those we'll grab onto. Now we don't need to tighten that down all the way we do have this included tool that comes with it.That's just a regular Allen key or a hex key. We'll get this started on each side of the foot pack and then we'll go and repeat that same process for the other side. Like I said we don't want to tighten this down all the way. We just want it to grab onto those threads on that cylinder on the backside. And then you can see those will just go right over that. Once we have those loosely installed, you can see that the bar still slides back and forth. So we want to get that measured up. We want that to be even on each side. So what I like to do is just kind of give a little measurement. You can eyeball it as well, just to get it as close as possible. So we're not leaning one side to the other. And then once we do get that centered up, we can tighten down those bolts that we we're just installing.Now that I have it centered up, I can just go back and tighten those all the way down. And as these tighten down, the inner workings of that are going to keep that bar from going back and forth as well. So that's what's really cool about this system. We don't have to do a bunch of different tightening down to keep everything in place. It's just a little bit easier to use compared to some other ones. But I think that just the system overall, being able to have the fixed points, not have to measure stuff out. I think this is really cool for the MDX, but I like to just go back and forth, make sure that I get this down evenly so we can get a nice secure fit.Now that everything's secure, we can put our cover on our foot packs. I've already done the other side. And then we can just use a Flathead screwdriver to get this put in place, get that to click on there. There we go. I would definitely consider getting those metal lock quarters though, just to keep things locked up a little bit more secure and what's nice is you can match those other Thule accessories. Then I'll get that piece slid back over to close that off to cut down on some of that wind noise. But overall, I don't think this is too difficult to have an installation when it comes to roof racks. I think it looks really good up there, whether you go with the black or the silver bars, but just getting that much needed capacity, throwing different items up there to free up some space in the back. Or if you don't have a hitch for bike racks, I think this is a really good way to go, but that's going to do it for our look at the Thule wing bar roof rack system on our 2019 Acura MDX.