Roof Rails, different fixed fastening point on the roof?

olaham

Member
:
Mazda CX-5 2.0 AT AWD 2013
Hello

I have reacently bought a Mazda CX-5 2.0 2013. I really like the car, feels smooth and quiet when driving, and nice to look at. I have been searching the internet for some roof rails. My local Mazda dealer does not know of any rails for this car.
I have found a pdf-instruction for a pair of roof rails for CX-5, here on this site i think. So far so good, but when i look at this instruction, it shows how to remove the rubber seal and how to cut them to make space for the fastener of the rails. The odd thing is that the pdf shows two fasteners for the front location of the roof and two on the back of the roof. That means four screws on each rail if you follow me... But when i check my car it only has one connection in the front of roof and one at the back. Can it be possible that this car has different fasteners for rails or a ski rack in different countries? I mean a car that goes to Europe has only one fastening point front and one at the back, but in the US it has two fasteners in the front and two back. I think thats wery strange if so.
Maybe someone here at the forum have some facts reagarding this matter.

Thankfull for some help

Best Regards Ola
 
The European cx-5 does indeed have different fastening point for the roof rack. The us spec roof system uses side rails that have two bolt in the front per side and two bolts in the rear per side. The side rails mount and then cross bars get added to the side rails. The euro system allows a much wider array of car top systems to be installed on the car. Thule and Yakima are two very common roof rack manufacturers and each will have solutions for you car. Basically you will not need entire side rails. The cross bars will mount to "feet" that get attached at the single bolt hole on your roof. I imagine your plastic gutter strips actually have little doors that open to expose the mounting point.
 
Ok, that was a bit dissapointing to hear, i would prefer to have rails that can stick to the car for some time. It looks a bit tricky to always take of the small plastic cover (that was very hard to get back in place by the way), and screw on the rail both front and back.
Maybe the rails that i have seen on some pictures can be fit to my car but only with one screw front and back? I mean if the EU model is left with only one screw front and back for this Thule and Yakima system, it should be enough to fix the rails in place also. It is just a M6 threaded screw but that is still rather hard to rip of when tightened.

Ola
 
Thanks RLCarrington, that explains it, i have to skip my plans for the rails on my EU CX-5 then.

Best Regards Ola
 
I wonder if the euro spec crossbars could be mounted on the us roof using only one of the hole ls for the side rail? If so it could be that you could adjust cross bars to different positions, two in the front two in the rear.
 
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