Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful.
By Simon Hoang
First off, this comes with FOUR saddles as opposed to the picture, which only shows two. Like the other reviewer stated, the hardware is not perfect. The U-bolts take a little elbow grease to fit into their slots, but I did not have any problem with the screw-knobs threading. Each saddle screwed down tightly and securely to my 2002 Ford Escape factory cross bars (I was a little afraid because my bars are about 3-4 inches wide, but it was fine).
I used this to transport a large 13 foot tandem kayak. The included straps are just what you need: two straps with buckles to tie the kayak down to the roof rack, and bow and stern tie downs. I felt very comfortable taking it on the highway.
Overall, I would recommend this product to those looking to save some money compared to Yakima or Thule solutions. These mount great on factory crossbars, and you get everything you need for about half the price of name brand saddles. I did purchase the Thule water slide mat in additionThule 854 Water Slide Kayak Carrier Accessory Mat, and this setup works perfect for me.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful.
By Chris Richardson
This product could have been an amazing deal. The price is great, and the quality of the saddles are great, but the hardware is garbage. It is nice that they come with u-bolts, allowing this product to be used with virtually any factory crossbars. Unfortunately, the quality if the u-bolts were terrible. The provided knobs fit on the u-bolts less than half the time. The threading is very very poor on the u-bolts. While attaching the first saddle, one knob went on just fine, the other was stripping the threading on the u-bolt. In an effort to see what was exactly the issue, the knob or the u-bolt, I tried standard nuts on the u-bolts, and the knobs on standard bolts. Knobs were fine, u-bolts were not. A trip to the hardware store will hopefully remedy the situation, but it was fairly frustrating trying to make this work.
After a long battle, I was able to secure the saddles with a mix of the knobs and nuts. Once on there, it did what it was supposed to, helped transport my kayak securely.
This would be deserving of an easy 5 stars if not for the u-bolts. Small gripe, maybe, but I was just hoping for something a little better.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
By Aaron Knupp
I have two kayaks (10 ft, 15 ft) and a Nissan Pathfinder. Both kayaks were easy to mount securely to my SUV with these mouning saddles. I did, however, buy racheting straps as the provided mounting straps did not feel secure enough for highway speed. I also put a little WD-40 on the mounting screws as they were painted which made using them a pain. Overall a good product, just needs some customer common sense modifications to work perfect!
