Yeah, I have a rack and found I really never put anything up there and got sick of the noise so I go bare most of the time, and slap the Thule bars on to carry a roof box or ski rack. Carry some traction boards on the cargo shelf in back. Gotta sell the roof rack one of these days.

 

If you are in the NYC area I’d buy them off your hands!

 

i use a thule alpine roof box. It was intended for ski equipment but am able to fit a couple of duffel bags and other stuff on top.

much lower profile than their other boxes and possibly could clear some parking garages

the defender and my previous Bmw X5M had fairly small cargo space. Beside a safe place for my board i find it really useful for other items

on a side not, i remember someone actually mounting their ski rack directly into the roof rails giving a very low profile. trying to find the post

 

Hey sorry for the late report but I finally pulled all the necessary pieces together and installed them just before X-mass.

The OEM bars (at a slight discount from one NJ dealer), the Yakima Fat Cat 6 ski/board carriers and the all important Slot-T adaptors did trick.

Thanks so much for all the recommendations and the VERY useful measurements. We clear the garage door comfortably at lowered height and "sufficiently" at normal ride height (i.e. we literally brush the plastic weather-stripping with the rear of the two bars, but it clears.

I did gently tap a 7' parking garage sign on Christmas day, so I'll have to keep an eye on that in the future.

Wind noise was mostly imperceptible maybe below 70-75 mph. Above that I can definitely notice it, but we don't spend much time above that.

I can't tell if mileage was directly effected as we're going through a cold snap and I wasn't uhhh, taking my time heading to and from the family x-mass celebrations this week.

Testing it by pulling in slowly at regular height. The first bar clears well enough thanks to the slight angle coming off the gravel driveway onto the garage pad:



The rear bar makes me nervous, but clears as well:



We should be good to go for the season:



Now I just have to decide what I remove seasonally. I might try JUST removing the Yakima Fat-Cats and leaving the OEM bars with the slot adaptors (and a retaining nut). Unless I find that whistles. But I'll worry about that come spring.

Thanks again all and have a happy new year.

 

@Kev M
Don't forget to not load your skis in pairs. The bindings will clobber your door.

 

Gavin is correct about the bindings, the FatCat grows a bit when loaded, even with the binding down. I will kind of bite the bullet and load and unload the skis outside, Mainly, since I will forget to lower the vehicle due to distraction, or just being a space cadet. All excited to get back on the slopes. This storm is going to dump 42" on the mountain! I am still going to try to rob a wrecked Range Rover's rear center seat from a junkyard. It has this really clever ski tube that popped out of the back of the center seat.

 

Yeah gentleman, I was gonna load/unload outdoors.

But the reminder is appreciated. 👍

 

@GavinC what tires are you rocking now-a-days? The factory A/T's are absolute hog-wash in the light snow we had down here Kirkland, slid getting onto 85th near Costco going snail speeds. I see you're selling you oldies, what was the upgrade?

 

I have my Bizzaks on at the moment. 275/55 R20 and have 265/70 R18 KO2s on my other rims. They'll go back on in late March.

 

Another one to add to the mix is the Cooper AT3 4S 275 55 R20, a 'no chain' rated tire. Seemed fine in the pathetic snow we got before today. However we just started a week long dump which should pan out to a decent 2-4' so I have yet to take them out in deeper snow. I just wait a couple of days so everybody remembers how to drive in the snow. Nothing to urgent so I can work from home. Ask again in a week. They do seem to have a similar tread design to my Nokian Hakkas, which are unobtainum due some thing going on with their Russian plant. On the plus side Cooper gives a military/veteran discount, if does anything for you. Mountain should rock next week for skiing.