Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I was generally disappointed with this rack and returned it. It wasn't a terrible rack, but it wasn't great either, and I wanted something solid.
1. One thing I liked about the rack was the ability to move the mounts for each of the 4 bikes forward and back. Unfortunately, these mounts do not have the grip to stay in place. When I had 1 bike mounted closest to the car, after taking it for a ride my bike ended up halfway back on the rack and at about a 25 degree angle - it wasn't parallel with the back of the rack any more. I was *not* concerned about the bikes coming off the rack because the end of each rack arm there's a stopper thing bolted on (the bright yellow piece), but I didn't like the bike's position jumping around like that when it was on the rack.
2. I imagine that for the same reasons, if you put more than one bike on the rack they would end up squished and banging against each other by the end of the ride.
3. If you place a single bike on the very back mount, it doesn't slide around like that. But it does bounce up and down quite a bit. When it's on the mount closest to the car it doesn't bounce much if at all, but when it's on the back mount there's definitely bounce when you go over a bump. I will say that this version of the rack with the screw-in hitch pin was less bouncy than the previous "Hassle Free Hitch" version which I was able to try from a local bike shop.
4. The cable lock is just a short span of cable that locks the outermost bike on the rack - it is simply impossible for you to mount a single bike closest to the car and use the lock. This isn't so bad if you have a bike mounted on the outermost mount because it blocks any of the other bikes from being taken off, but I was surprised.
5. Assembling the rack requires several additional tools not included with the rack - according to the installation video (I don't recall the sizes offhand so I checked) you need -
A. A 3/4th inch wrench.
B. A 2nd 3/4th inch wrench. Though the 2nd one is just used to hold the nut on one side, so I was able to use one of those adjustable wrenches that I had.
C. And one 9/16 inch wrench.
Regarding the 3/4th wrench, it's used both for securing one of the bolts that holds the rack together and for the hitch bolt. On my hitch I actually needed one of those "clicky" wrenches because a regular wrench was to big to fit in the space I had around the hitch. Couldn't use the adjustable wrench either, for the same reasons, so you'll probably need to buy a new tool.
6. Security-wise, the only thing that attaches to the rack part of the rack to the hitch part of the rack is a standard bolt, so someone could steal most of the rack and all the bikes with a simple wrench, even with the locking hitch pin. The good news is that there's no reason to be able to remove these bolts, so if you wanted the rack to be more secure you could always tighten or weld them, I believe. (Though if you were leaving bikes on the rack in that case I would suggest a sturdy lock than a cable lock).
7. I had a strap-on rack before this rack (Saris Bones), and once you strapped it on it was rock solid. This rack was never rock solid - as I mentioned, with a bike on the back it bounced noticeably. Unfortunately, after doing a bunch of reading it appears all racks are like this.
8. Changing the position of the arms of the rack to point down so they didn't stick out while the bikes were on required removing then reinserting a pin, and reinserting the pin was a little bit fussy. Thule racks have a thing you just press down to the do the same thing. Now the pin is more steady and doesn't have a little bit of flop like the Thule mechanism did...but since the rack jumped around a bit anyways, I'm not sure it ended up mattering.
9. I didn't have a chance to try it, but it definitely would have been a tight fit to fit 4 bikes on it.
10. I had thought it would be faster to put on than my "strap to the car" rack. However, it requires a tool to do it (the older hassle free hitch version doesn't, but bounces around a little more) and takes some time and some fiddling - getting the pin through the hitch was annoying sometimes. I don't mean that this is any different than any other hitch mounted racks, but I was disappointed. And unlike the strap racks, you would need a fairly large trunk to leave it in your trunk (of course you could also just leave it attached to the hitch all the time).
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Things I did like about the rack -
1. Though the mounts might move around a bit, the clicky straps that hold the bike to the mounts were very secure and I wasn't worried at all that the bike would come off them. At not point was I concerned at all that the bikes might come off the rack.
2. It wasn't terribly heavy like the Thule racks seemed to be.
3. Saris customer service actually had a phone number, answered their phone, and could answer questions about the racks - they didn't give me any "blow smoke up your arse" answers are either, which was great.
4. Like most hitch racks, I was able to get into the trunk/hatch with the rack on and bikes on the rack.
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Some of my complaints are specific to the Saris rack, and some of them aren't, but overall I had thought a hitch rack would be better than the "attach with straps" kind of rack, and was rather disappointed.
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