[Mattoid]

Im finally getting around to making the roof rack purchase for my vehicle. My car has a factory rack and according to the manual the roof can hold 165lbs, I couldnt find anything in the manual about how much the rails can specifically hold. Should I go with a set up that uses the factory racks or should I attempt to remove them and run a standard set up sans factory rails? The rack will frequently be carrying two dh bikes so it needs to be sturdy enough. The racks in question are thules with the sportworks/tule trays.

Does anyone know if audi facotry racks even come off without a fight? I dont want to be prying em off with a crow bar but I dont want my bikes flying off around a hair pin turn.

 

[motomike]

It should be fine. I'm not running the same setup as you are talking about, but for reference---Protege 5, factory rack. I put two Yakima King Cobras on with the universal Mighty Mounts attaching them to the cross bars. It works great.

 

[mobius]

I'm running a yakima roof cage and two king cobras on the stock bars on my explorer. They are no where as nice as your audi bars and ive had my dh bike and another on there and it was stable.