General Roof Bars and Thule 591 Bike Carrier

[dunedin397]

Hello Everyone,

This is my 1st post, so please be gentle.

I've just received a new Fiat Panda Lounge and it's come with a tow bar and roof bars. We've got a Thule 2 bike rear carrier for the tow bar as well as 2 Thule 591 Pro Ride bike carriers for the roof bars. The carriers came from our previous cars. They're all in great condition as they've been looked after, so it didn't make sense to ask Fiat to fit new carriers as I already had a set.

The rear carrier for the tow bar all works well (but a shame it won't fit in the boot when not in use, but not the end of the world) but I can't fit the roof carriers.

The previous car had square bars but the bars on the Panda are much wider meaning the clamps won't reach around underneath and the T bolts are too short.

Does anyone have experience fitting Thule 591 carriers to the Fiat bars? I may be doing something wrong, but from what I can see I need different parts but I can't see the carriers come with anything other than what I have.

The Line Accessories brochure shows these carriers on the same bars, so I do know they can fit. So any help is appreciated.

Cheers,

Dunedin397

 

[Herts Hillhopper]

I have also had this issue, finding that my Halfords bike carriers wouldn't not fit the genuine Fiat roofbars. (I did find however, that the genuine Fiat bars were cheaper than buying Thule bars, feet and adaptor kits - and then to my surprise found the Fiat ones are made by Thule anyway!)

I bought a set of Thule T bolts from ebay, hoping to use these to connect my Halfords bars. But it turns out that although the Halfords and Thule system use6mm threaded bolts, the pitch of the Thule thread is much finer than a standard metric thread, so I couldn't use them.
In the end I found that if I unscrew the Halfords clamps fully (so the lever comes off the bolt), I can, just, get them over the Fiat bars and then, just screw the clamp lever back onto the thread of the original bolts. If I were to leave out the slide in rubber trim, I think I'd manage to fit them without fully unscrewing. I had though about buying a Thule carrier and using the new T bolts I bought. These are pretty long and I believe will work... (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Thule-591-Pro-Ride-Cycle-Carrier-T-Track-Bolts-Complete-Kit-for-x1-591-Bike-Rack-/230900097086?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item35c2b7e03e) but the fact it hasn't worked for you makes me wonder if that won't solve my problem

 

[dunedin397]

Hello Hert Hillhopper.

Thanks for replying.

Despite the brochure showing the carriers fitted to the bars by clamps, it doesn't seem to be what actually happens. For your bars the trick is going to be getting the bolts onto the clamps and allowing the clamp to go around the bottom of the bars, which I couldn't get mine to do and I'm not so sure the bars and the clamps would work well together, so you'd have to experiment a little and I think you'd want to ensure enough of each bolt was screwed into the lever to be safe.

When I was out on my bike at the weekend I looked at a few various makes of cars with aero bars and the 591 carriers fitted. Their bars had a track in the middle and used T-track bolts to connect with the cam lever on top of the carrier.

When I got back home I took the plate off the Fiat bars and it looks like the rubber piece can be removed by sliding it out. I would guess T-track bolts would then slide into the track and connect to the carrier, as I saw with the other cars. However that would leave a lot of the inside of the track exposed so I think the rubber insert could be cut into 3 pieces where required and inserted in the middle of the bars and at either between the carrier and plate.

I've yet to try this as I might actually be missing certain pieces from the carrier. I may just have the parts to connect to square bars rather than aero bars, so I might end up buying pieces I can't use. I bought a 591 carrier from a friend who had it fitted to a mini and I've never used it as it didn't have the pieces I needed to clamp it to the bars.

What I've actually done is connect the carriers to the bars using tie wraps. I've got these expensive industrial grade tie wraps which cost £s per tie wrap as opposed to 100s per £ and I've got a special gun that tightens and cuts the wrap. The gun is £50 new but I managed to get one 2nd hand from eBay a little cheaper.

I've tested the carriers on the local roads and the motorway over the last couple of days and the carriers haven't moved a millimetre. What I'll do next is put a bike on and try it out on local roads before going on the motorway. I do understand the load and stress on everything is very different on the motorway compared to slower local roads.

As well as these tie wraps I may try indistrual jubilee clips which tighten by a screw which means they'd be reusable, but I'll need to see what's available.

This has made me research what's required by law when carrying loads on the roof of a vehicle , and it just seems to be that loads must be made secure, not overhang (too much) and not cause danger to other road users by coming off. How that's achieved seems to be up to the driver of the vehicle. So potentially tie wraps, string or cords are as good as clamps as long as it keeps the load on the vehicle. So I doubt you could take a long canoe on a 500 but it would be ok on a Doblo because of the overhang, for example.

I've done a fair amount of googling and it's interesting to read how people carry loads like kayaks, canoes, etc and whilst many use bought carriers they usually seem to add their own extra solution to securing the load or even making their own carrier

I don't want to be daft here and cause damage to the car, my bikes or endager other road users so if it comes to it I'll just get new carriers fitted by Fiat and at least it's done to dealer spec.

I'll let you know how I get on, but don't hesitate to reply here or through a message.

Cheers,

Dunedin397

 

[Herts Hillhopper]

Exactly as you describe, the T bolts are slid into the channel from one end after unlocking the end cap and removing and cutting the rubber insert to fit around them. The blurb from Thule suggests the T-track bolts are supplied with the carrier when new: http://www.thule.com/en/gb/products...nted-bike-carriers/thule-proride-591-_-591018

Pete

 

[Panda 4x4 TA Antarctica]

If you're having difficulty getting the T-track fittings, try roofbox (dot co, dot uk) - helped me out no end when trying to swap over some MINI bike carriers onto Ford (/Thule) roof-bars. You may need to buy your own nuts to secure the carriers to these, but they provide a proper, bolted-down solution.

Before cutting the rubber-trim, I'd try just taking it out when the carriers are mounted - the carriers will likely whistle just as much as the exposed track, then you have your intact rubber to slide back in when you take them off?

Good Luck!