# 1
Thule Passage Trunk Bike Rack for 2 Bikes - Hanging Style
Ordered online, it shipped the same day. Received it 3 days later. There is a little assembly, but, pretty simple. It took me less than 15 minutes to install and no tools were needed. It is adjustable to be used on many different auto types, but, the instructions were very clear about how to adjust it to fit my 2011 Ford Edge. I have used it twice so far to transport my bike. There are a couple of items that are inherent in the design, not a flaw, but, you need to be aware of them. First, you can't use rear window wipers. Second, the back-up alarm goes nuts because it registers a bike less than 6 inches behind you (I tolerate it for the few seconds it takes to back out of my driveway or out of a parking lot). Third, there is a little flexibility, it is held on with straps and clamps, not bolts, so, it bounces a little when you go over bumps or make sharp turns, however, it holds the bike fast to the frame and stays on the car. I use mine to transport my bike on short trips around town to bike trails. On a long trip I would suggest checking that the straps remain tight from time to time during the drive.
Positive: The product is well thought out and works for a wide range of automotive vehicles. It comes with interesting dampers that i think work. Instructions seem to be translated from another language, but are quite good, accompanying pictures make installation straightforward. A test drive over speed bumps shows that the rack will support the bike for all travel needs. It can be disassembled , collapsed and stored in the trunk. Downside: The rack is made for the classic triangular shaped frame: horizontal cross bar, "male" bike. For bikes without the horizontal bar, mounting is a little less satisfactory. Such a bike can only be mounted on the outside mounts. Cannot use the damper on one side. Picture shows the mounting. as to a design solution, maybe brackets could be replaced with smaller profile, some adjustability? however, as it is, vibration control is good and adjustability with smaller profile would have vibration concerns.
# 2
Thule Passage 3 Bike Carrier - Trunk Mount
The side / bottom straps are seriously lacking. It has those straps you would find on a backpack, making it difficult to securely tighten down because of the angle. I'd usually have to pre-tighten them to a certain length, then forcefully shove the whole rack until it clipped onto my car. They really just need to be ratchet straps. Even then, one of the side straps came off while driving after hitting a small pothole and the whole thing dangled to one side - Luckily I was in a parking lot. I've also never been able to fit 3 regular bikes, only 2. It's really only a capacity of 3 if you have 2-3 slim bikes. The rubber is so wide that it makes it nearly impossible to slide certain bikes on. If you have a step thru bike with one of those crossbar adapters, I wouldn't even bother with trying this. Unfortunately I don't use this anymore since I'd be constantly worrying the whole thing will come off whenever I drive.
Fits perfectly on our Lexus CT200h. Only on the old LS400, the side straps have to be fastened to the wheel arch edge, since the upper trunklid gap is to narrow for inserting the strap hooks. Mounting of two bikes is (with some routine) quickly done, and they stay safe even for longer and faster routes. For transporting three (mountain) bikes, though, the design doesn't seem big and robust enough. Nevertheless, the price-benefit-fun ratios are way better than reasonable.
# 3
Thule Hitching Post Pro Bike Rack for 4 Bikes - 1-1/4" and 2" Hitches
Super sturdy and easy to use/install. Love the bolt hitch attachment, keeps the rack from swaying/wobbling. Attachment points are very solid and the anti swing clips keep your bikes from smashing into each other and the rack during fast starts and stops. I use for all types of bikes, road, mountain, cruiser, children's, etc.
The good: I like the way the bikes are held in and the ability to add the upright adapters to the bike frame holders. The straps are quality too. For a jeep with a spare tire, this is the perfect length to clear it. This rack is 5 stars from the bike holders to the base of it. The bad: the 2"receiver adapter and bolt are insufficient. I wish they made this in a solid 2" hitch. The entire setup is held into the receiver by a very short bolt. It only goes about half way into the receiver tube. So your hitch is only "secured" on one side. A hitch pin or bolt should go through the receiver tube completely imo so it can be secured on the other end with a retaining clip or nut. Because this only goes in the one side, the entire weight of the rack plus bikes are held tight to one side of the receiver by the undersized bolt and washer. A few bumps down the road and that bolt loosens. Now instead of distibuting the weight of the rack and bikes on the receiver and post, it's completely up to the bolt to keep you from losing the rack. The bolt threads get damaged too. I took this down a dirt road and nearly lost everything. I had to buy my own bolt with hd fender washers and lock washers to correct this. Thule should've provided this from the start. The current short bolt design where only one side of the receiver secures the rack is unacceptable. This rack is 1 star at best for the connection to the receiver.
# 4
Kuat NV 2.0 Bike Rack for 4 Bikes - 2" Hitches - Wheel Mount - Gunmetal Gray
Excellent rack, a year later still in great condition. No movement at hitch when driving like other racks. Love the extra bar to work on bike in parking lot. Cracked a part on the rack when backing up accidentally hit it, I called the company and they immediately sent out new part no questions asked and rack is like new. Easy to access the drop and raise bar even with bikes on .A note that with larger mountain bikes only three really fit on the four rack without adjusting handle bars. Thanks to etrailer for stocking a great product and providing excellent post purchase service
My Kuat NV 2. Bike Rack is the best bike rack I have ever owned. It is excellent for electric bikes. Very easy to load bikes and holds bikes very securely.
# 5
Yakima HoldUp Bike Rack for 2 Bikes - 2" Hitches - Wheel Mount
Works well for transporting two 29" wheeled mountain bikes. However, after one year it's starting to rust in several areas (see attached photos), and the front wheel arms are becoming increasingly difficult to raise and lower. Finally the locking cable is extremely rusty as you can see in the attached photo. I'm not sure how durable this rack will be long term.
First-time buyer, can't complain about anything. Another first, my first hitch-type bike carrier as well...did a lot of research and came upon etrailer. The website was easy to navigate with plenty of detail and customer reviews. I took advantage of a nice holiday sale they are running, the unit was out-of-stock, which I wasn't aware of at the time of order. However, I was notified quickly and provided a new ship date which was very reasonable. Shipping was free as well, another reason why I went etrailer. Everything went well, I'm very happy with the Yakima HoldUp rack...easy to assemble, very well constructed, heavy-duty, hold our two bikes nicely, easy to put on and take off, very please with my decision.
# 6
Kuat NV 2.0 Bike Rack for 2 Bikes - 2" Hitches - Wheel Mount - Gunmetal Gray
This thing is built like a tank! It is of the best fit and funtion I have seen in a bike rack! Solid as can be, fits my bikes perfectly and looks awesome! Plus it folds completely out of the way to access the rear liftgate on my 2022 Rav4!
Great service from etrailer and the rack arrived as expected. Fairly easy assembly. OK video on Kuat’s site, but didn’t cover the foot pedal. Really glad we got the 2” hitch. It tightened up and we’re impressed with the quality and the stability of the rack. We haven’t done a road test yet, but look forward to putting it to the test. We have a Ford F-150 and it works great. The bikes were fairly easy to load with the batteries out and two people. We do need the strap extenders for our RadMini Step Thru’s. The tires are too big for the ones that come with. Only one set of extenders came with the bike and one adapter for a smaller tire. It’s okay, but since it’s a two bike unit, would have been nice to have both extenders. Otherwise, we are really liking the look and stability.
# 7
Kuat Sherpa 2.0 Bike Rack for 2 Bikes - 2" Hitches - Wheel Mount - Black
Great bike rack! Easy to setup and get bikes on and off. Fair comparable pricing and fast delivery by etrailer.
This rack is great. The adjustable tilt feature is convenient. The price point is solid for the quality. The 4 star rating is simply because some of the plastic melted due to exhaust heat when the rack was in the bikeless up position. Küat warranty and customer service was great. They are replacing the hook. If you're thinking of this for a 2021 Forester, definitely get the Hi-lo adapter so that the hook doesn't sit in line with the exhaust.
# 8
Swagman XTC4 Bike Rack for 4 Bikes - 2" Hitches - Frame Mount
Rack is very sturdy and heavy duty. Instructions were terrible. Locking hitch pin would not thread correctly and ended up damaging it. Thankfully the threads on rack were fine and I was able to use the non-locking threaded pin. Would like a replacement locking pin ASAP
If you've done any research or read any of the other comments on either this rack, or this seller...rest assured they really are as good as everyone says! I ordered my rack on around 4pm est on a Friday afternoon and within an hour I received an email that said they have shipped my product AND upgraded to priority shipping. Can't say enough positive things about the customer service! When the rack arrived, it took me a little over half an hour to get it set up. Probably would e been faster if I were even slightly mechanically inclined (or if didn't I didn't have to borrow a socket wrench from my neighbor). We finally had an opportunity to load up the bikes and head out for a ride today. As others have said, the first time you load up your bikes, it's kind of like a puzzle to get them situated. Took about 15 minutes. This rack is awesome! Very sturdy and the bikes were very secure. Only racks I have had in the past were rooftop fork mount racks. This is so much easier! On e we got to the trail (over an hour drive) getting the bikes off was a piece of cake. Afterwards, it was time to load them back up and it was less than 5 minutes to get them all on and ready to hit the road. There were other 4-bike racks on the website, but this one had enough great reviews that I felt comfortable making the purchase. After the fact, I'm very glad I did! I can't imagine the $800 rack can be that much better than this, and I highly recommend this for anyone looking for a 4-bike platform rack. I will definitely recommend this rack and etrailer.com to everyone I know.
Thule Hitch Bike Racks Review - 2017 BMW X5
Ryan: Hey everybody, Ryan here at etrader.com. Today on our 2017 BMW X5, we're going to be taking a look at the Thule Helium Pro 2 bike rack. So this rack does hold up to a total of two bikes. However, if you need to carry more, there's also a three bike version available as well. Now, main question we get asked, especially in regards to hitching bike racks is if you're still going to have full access to your hatch, whenever the rack is on the back of your BMW. Well, this one does fold down to allow us to do that.
Thule Hitch Bike Racks Review - 2017 BMW X5 TH9056
Ryan: Hey everybody, Ryan here at etrailer.com. Today on our 2017 BMW X5 we're going to be taking a look at the Thule Camber 4 Bike Rack. Now, this can carry up to a total of four bicycles, however if you don't need to carry that many, there's also a two bike version available as well. Now, one of the main questions we get in regards to the hitch-mounted bike racks is if you're still going to be able to easily access your hatch. Well, this one does fold down out of the way and gives us the capability to do that. So, if we just work our way down the rack, we're going to have a gray lever, if you lift up on it, you're able to fold everything out of the way.
RockyMounts Hitch Bike Racks Review - 2016 BMW X5
Speaker 1: Today, on our 2016 BMW X5, we're doing a test-fit of the RockyMounts Backstage Platform-Style 2-Bike Rack, that part number is: RKY10002.Now, we already have our bike secured down. We're first going to go over a couple features. First feature I want to go over is our tilting feature, because we can do this with our bikes fully loaded. We're going to come here to our convenient handle in the back, so we won't have to reach between our bikes. We're just going to pull on that and tilt our bikes with our bike rack away from our vehicle. In this position, we are going to gain full access into our back hatch area to get anything in or out that we may need.
RockyMounts Hitch Bike Racks Review - 2016 BMW X5 RKY10004
Speaker 1: Today on our 2016 BMW X5 we're doing a test fit of the RockyMounts MonoRail platform-style 2-bike rack. That part number is RKY10004. Now we already have our bike secured down. We're first going to show you one of the key features of this rack. This is going to be our tilting feature. What's great about this bike rack is that we do have a convenient lever here at the front instead of other bike racks that have them in the middle or towards the vehicle.
Kuat Hitch Bike Racks Review - 2016 BMW X5
Speaker 1: Today on our 2016 BMW X5 we're doing a test fit of the Kuat NV 2.0 platform-style 2-bike rack. That part number is NV22G. Now we already have our bike secured down. We're first going to show you one of the key features of this rack. If we come in between our two mounting points here, you'll see our level. We'll just pull down on that.
Thule Hitching-Post-Pro Hitch Bike Racks Review - 2016 BMW X5
Speaker 1: Today on our 2016 BMW X5, we're doing a test fit of the Thule Hitching Post Pro hanging-style 4-Bike Rack. That part number is TH934XTR.Now, we already have our bike secured down. We're first going to show you how we secure it in place. We have three straps altogether. We've got two over our frame and one is our anti-sway strap in the back. This is going to help prevent swinging back and forth and it's going to prevent your bikes from possibly making contact with each other.
Inno Hitch Bike Racks Review - 2015 BMW X5
Hi everyone. It's Evangeline here at etrailer. And today, we are looking at our Inno Tire Hold two-bike rack here on our 2015 BMW X5. So, the Inno Tire Hold is an awesome bike rack when it comes to how easy it is to mount and dismount your bikes. Plus it has a really good weight capacity, so even if you have, let's say, your heavy electric bikes, this is gonna be a good fit. So, we're gonna take a look at one of the features of this Inno Tire Hold and it's that it can tilt away.
Thule Domestique Roof Bike Rack Review - 2013 BMW X5
Today on our 2013 BMW X5 we'll be test fitting the Thule Domestique Roof Mounted Bike Carrier, part number th513. We'll begin our test fit by placing the carrier onto the vehicle's load bars. We'll loosen up the Allen bolts at the head of the carrier as well as the rear of the carrier to bring both the front and rear bracket around our front and rear load bar.Now with the brackets around the underside of the load bars we'll use the included Allen key to tighten down the Allen bolts to secure the front and rear of the carrier to the front and rear load bar. Now with everything all tightened down and secured we're ready to load up our bike. We'll reinsert our skewer, making sure that it is loose so the forks can slide out onto it.We'll then undo the strap at the rear and place our bike onto the carrier. We'll slide the forks onto the skewer, adjust the skewer and clamp it down.
Swagman Fork Down Roof Bike Rack Review - 2013 BMW X5
Today on our 2013 BMW X5 we'll be test fitting the Swagman Fork Down Roof Mounted Bike Carrier, part number s64710. We'll begin our test fit by placing the carrier onto our vehicle's load bars. We'll then use the silver brackets to go around the underside of the front load bar and up through the head of the carrier.We'll then use the black wing nuts that thread onto the silver brackets securing the head of the carrier to the front load bar. Next to make sure your carrier fits the load bar spread of your vehicle we can loosen up the silver nuts at the center of the carrier to adjust the tray to fit the load bar spread of your vehicle.Once we've established this position we can then slide the silver bracket this time on top of the rear load bar, run the black bracket around the underside of the rear load bar and use the black wing nuts to thread onto the silver bracket to secure the rear of the carrier to the rear load bar. Once everything is all secured and tightened down we're ready to load up our bike.We'll double check to make sure the skewer is loosened up at the front of our carrier and then we'll undo the strap at the rear. We'll place our bike onto the carrier, sliding the forks of the bike onto the skewer and clamping it down.
RockyMounts TieRod Stretch Roof Bike Rack Review - 2013 BMW X5
Today, on our 2013 BMW X5, well be test fitting the RockyMounts Tierod Stretch Roof-Mounted Bike Carrier, Part Number RKY1011.Well begin our test fit by placing the carrier on the vehicles load bars. Well undo the black plastic cover at the head of the carrier and move to the rear, where we will loosen up the allen bolts to bring the rear bracket on our rear load bar.Well then tighten them down and move back up to the front of the carrier, where well bring the rubber coated steel straps around the underside of the front load bar and hook them back into the top bracket. Well then use the included allen key to tighten down the silver bolt of the head of the carrier to bring the straps up around tightly at the front load bar.Once everything is all tightened down and secured, were ready to load up our bike. Well replace the black plastic cover at the front of the carrier and double check to make sure our skewer releases well.Well undo the rear tray strap, place our bike unto the carrier, slide the forks of our bike on to the skewer of our carrier and clamp it down. Well finally secure the back tire with the rear tray strap. And that completes todays test fit for the RockyMounts Tierod Stretch Roof-Mounted Bike Carrier, Part Number RKY1011 on our 2013 BMW X5..
What our customers are saying:
"great experience!!! I've been looking for a hitch. With the experience I just had with the bike rack, I;kk definitely come back and order the hitch when I have a little more $$$. delivery was quick! the product was awesome!!! Frank"