[Paddlewise] Best all round car for kayakers?

Samuel wrote:
> I am trying to figure out what is the best vehicle to purchase that
> will carry a Kayak. 

Mr Sailboard Restorations wrote:
> Subaru Outback -- best all around car for kayakers.  

I looked into this fairly carefully since I run a sea kayak tour business
here in Sydney.
I like the Subaru Outback but found the roof rails are quite a bit closer
together than on the Subaru Forester. If you want to fit two kayaks on the
roof check this out first! One of my US customer's last week told me they
fell for this mistake and were shocked when they found they couldn't fit
their two boats on the Outback.

You can always get roof racks (I use Mont Blanc) that extend over the sides
of the rails however there will be legal limits to this. I opted for the
Forester and I'm very happy with it - I can just fit two doubles on it.

I seem to remember as well that the max roof rail loading weight wasn't that
great for the Outback. You might need to check the brochures for that spec
(I couldn't find it on the Subaru website). 

Patrick
Sydney, Australia


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