Just got back in from aborted trip to Everglades and Keys. I have a 3 month old Toyota Matrix with Yakima Q-towers and bars. This is my first time to use the Q-towers and clips as my last two vehicles (Bronco and Ford Ranger) had the add on rain gutter brackets so I could use standard rain-gutter style towers and clips. With the Q-towers the pads sit on the outside of the roof. As you tighten the unit, the clips pull down on the pads. However, it is actually the fact that the car is wider as the pad tries to move down that creates the force that holds the rack in place. Instructions give very precise (down to 1/8 in) assembly and location measurements to insure good fit. Short version is that I thought I had everything installed ok, but got to Pensacola and noticed rear rack had rotated and only about 1/2 of the pad was still in contact with the car. We managed a reinstallation with help from Walmart tool department, but were not sure if the same thing would happen again so we decided to head home. We drove back at max of 60 mph hoping to minimize problem. We got back without any noticeable change in the rack. In looking at our gas mileage I was amazed at how much difference our speed made in the gas mileage. 70 mph - 21 mpg - 2nd half of the drive to Pensacola 65 mph - 25 mpg - First fillup after 200 miles driving at night speed limit of 65 60 mph - 30 mpg - Most of the drive back 55 mph - 35 mpg - First fillup driving back. We drove at 55 for quite a while to make sure the racks were going to be ok. We had a 16 ft and a 19 ft kayak (each about 22in wide) on the car with individual single front and rear tiedowns on each kayak. We did some testing on the drive home and found that between 65 and 70 mph there was a pronounced increase in the side-to-side motion of the kayaks despite the tiedowns. Lessons learned: (Ok, things everyone else knew but that I just figured out). 1. Test drive new racks with the actual kayaks you will be carrying before starting off on a long trip. 2. Check your racks CAREFULLY every time you stop for gas. 3 Carry your rack tools and INSTRUCTIONS in your car at all times (even when the racks are off the car since you will forget to put something back in when you put racks back on) 4. Pay very close attention to assembly/location measurements if using Q-tower type racks.. Make any error on tower placement on the narrow side. That is if it calls for 30 in then 29 7/8 is much better than 30 1/8 if you just can not get the measurements exact. Narrower towers can be tightened tighter than wider towers. 5. Do a speed test to see if you can reduce kayak vibration with just a slight reduction in speed. 6. Although I am not particularly "Green" I am very cheap. Slowing down to 55 would increase gas mileage 60% and save me almost $100 on my Florida trip. I'll stay in the slow lane and wave as you go by. Might be worth doing a mileage test to see if speed reduction saves you money. 7. If possible use a double line "A" frame tiedown to minimize side-to-side motion of the kayaks. Mark Arnold mjamja_at_earthlink.net *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Wed Feb 04 2004 - 14:26:09 PST
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