ebarron

Anyone found a good ski rack online?

The 450h doesnt come with the crossbars, and lexus doesnt seem to like to sell them online. Thule doesnt list the 450h yet either in its fit guide.

DaRacerz

If you wait till Saturday, I'll give you answer!!!! Picking up my RX Hybrid tomorrow!

Just to give you some upfront info, I'm having the OEM Crossbars on it. But I already bought and plan and *hoping* on using the Yakima Fatcat will fit the OEM bars. I will let you know when I try it out.

The reason I went with Yakima over the Thule is its very skinny and there is a difference in drag a fuel milage lost. If you do a lot of driving to the mountains, I would recommend going towards Yakima.

ebarron

Thanks.

Thule doesnt list their stuff as working against the OEM crossbars, but I think their webpage 'fit selector' is dated.

DaRacerz

Sorry for never getting back to you on the ski rack. I took delivery of the RX late friday evening and then had to deal with the snow storm Sat into Sunday. Had to dig out of 20+ inches of snow, so I never got around to installing the ski rack. But I will do so Monday right after work and post up! But by looking at the crossbars, I see no problems attaching the aftermarket rack.

DaRacerz

Alright eBarron, finally got around 50% of the way to putting up the ski rack today. Brutally cold and lack of time to do it during the day. But I was determined to get you some pics today. I felt real bad for keeping you hanging.

Anyways, this is the Yakima FatCat6.... supposedly the skinniest ski rack for best MPG (least loss) but the Thule's don't seem bad. But I really have no idea what the difference is between the two.

The thing I didn't like about the install is the mount around the crossbar. It fit easily, but the Yakima mounts had rubber coating on the upper side and just plastic on the bottom side. Personally, I will end up taking it apart and coating the bottom part in rubber as well for better grip and to not scratch the factory crossbars.

The arguable, little difficult to put on in <30 deg weather. But its understandable because they designed it to be very difficult to steal.

Onto to the pictures....

Pictures of the Mounts alone on the crossbars:




The first of the two Yakima's installed. Various shots...









Any questions? Did you already order the Thule?

ebarron

No, no questions. I wanted to see how it fit on the factory rails (which I don't have). I think I'll see if I can snag the rails tomorrow. You're pictures answered all my questions. Thanks very much. Looks like a nice setup.

mdv

Does anyone know how to take cross bars off
Thanks

DaRacerz

I haven't done it myself, but by inspection, its not easy to take off the cross bars. If you look on the rails, you will see 4 screws on the bottom side. 2 in the front and 2 in the rear of each rail. Once you unscrew this you need to lift out the rails and then the cross bars will slide out. This is definitely not easy to do, but understandable as they probably did this to make it difficult to steal.

wyau01

What you need to do is to remove the end piece from the rear of the rail, once it's removed, you can slide the cross bars out from the openings. But be careful, removing the two end pieces are not easy.

I think the Gen2 RX cross bars should fit the Gen3 RX. They should have the same steps of removal.

mission

I own a 350h and a 450h. The roof racks are the of the same dimension. I was able to transfer the Yakima cross rails for my bike rack with no problem. There is really no need for the factory rails.

The application charts for the 350h should work for the 450h.

rx350awd

Hi Mark (screen name DaRacerz),

From your picture I see you have the same rack as mine. I'm trying to install Yakima Fatcat 4 on my 2010 RX350 cross bab. The longest distance I can make between the front and back bars is about 17" 1/2. The ski binding is measured about 23" 1/2. How can the ski be fit into the Fatcat (I assume I should secure the ski's flat portion, with the binding in between the bars)? This is my first time dealing with cross bar.

DaRacerz

There is extra cross-bar spacing you can achieve. I have it set at 21 inch and there probably is another inch or two of room.

On the rails where the cross bars slide, on both the front facing section and rear facing section there is a rubber grommet placed in as part of the installation kit. (Visible on 2nd and Last Picture) I was told by the dealer it doesn't serve any real purpose. (Not sure of the truth of this statement). In any case, I ended up cutting the rubber piece to smaller size which would suit my 21" span. And there is additional room to work with. I presume taking it all out will get you the 23" span you need.

Hope it helps. If that doesn't make the span, the only alternative will be to buy either Yakima or Thule rack expander.