Larry99

Where do you position the crossbars on your roof rack?

I thought about placing the front one as far forward as possible to help with wind vibration (see helicoptor noise topic elsewhere), but when the moon roof is open, there is a funny dynamic with the wind and the roof open and the crossbar that tells me to move it back.

So, several inches back

Or, right over rear door

Or, am I being overly ****(ytical).

satxrx

There was a TSB actually on this topic of placement of the crossbars to help reduce some of the wind noise on the RX - but I cannot recall the exact measurments. But essentially the front crossbars go just behind the rear of the sunroof and the rear crossbars are positioned about 12" from the rear track.

Maybe someone else can find the exact numbers for you, but I'll look to see what I can find meanwhile.

shmelvin

Remove them, 99 out of 100 people will never use the roof rack. Plus it looks much better.

Larry99

Looks like I am the 1 out of 100. Used it more than once in transporting pieces of furniture - once about 300 miles from Mexico/Texas border.

And, I like them. To me, car would look unfinished w/o the racks.

badams

The RX300 looks like an egg without the roof rack.
I've stuck everthing on top of my RX from lumber to furniture.
I personally put the cross bars so they worked the best for holding stuff. Never noticed any difference in noise.

shmelvin

So now it looks like an Egg with a roof rack

badams

An expensive egg with a roof rack!

parula

Larry, what car do you have?

Ask the dealer for the proper bar positioning and if you have an old model make sure you have the latest streamlined bars, especially if under warranty, the newer version will really improve the overhead noise imo. I'll try to look up the specs for you but they will be hard to post without pics.

parula

Larry, I think the front edge of the front bar should be 115 mm behind the nearest seam in the track; and the rear edge of the rear rack 32 mm from the front part of the track forward base. See your dealer they should have the specs.

joako

Would you know if a 2000 RX would have the older or newer versions? My dealer would replace them but sometimes you need to hit them over they head with a bat trying to explain what you want.

sktn77a

iTrader: (2)

I have a late '99 RX300 without the roof mounted slats. Presumably this has the "old-profile" crossbars as the wind noise is quite noticeable. When did the change to the new profile crossbars???

Larry99

Its a 99 RX300.

Are the different roof bars a N/C change?

parula

If you are in warranty you should be able to have the problem fixed with new xbars properly adjusted according to the instructions. It really helped reduce the wind noise a lot imo.