Very expensive mistake - Roof Rack

[lindsayt]

So after a family bike ride this afternoon I remembered the bikes were on top just as I heard the "crunch" of them hitting the top of the garage. Good news: my bike's fine, the garage is fine, both bike carriers are fine. Bad news: my wife's bike's front fork needs replacement (no big), the front roof rack beam needs replacement (not cheap but not too bad), and the front fixpoints were bent up from the top of the car.

The good news is that I can see that Mazda mounted them in such a way as to expect this type of collision and I'm pretty sure nothing but the fixpoints and the black plastic strips over them were damaged. Anybody have any sense what it's going to cost to replace them? Any chance I can do it myself? Thanks!

 

[ScratchNSniff]

Don't worry...I have done the same thing...about an $800 mistake for me including garage, bike, rack, mount...

 

[lindsayt]

Okay, well that actually makes me feel better as the garage is fine and one of the bikes is fine. How much was it to repair the fixpoints on the car?

 

[ScratchNSniff]

Cost me $6 for the crossbar...I have a dent in my roof which isn't really noticeable...garage was around $20 to fix...most of the damage was in the bike tray and bike...put up a WTB add for the roof rack pieces...my parts are a lot more plentiful, but you may get lucky and find something cheap...

 

[mazdadude]

(eek2)

Sounds like a Chevy Chase moment!

Maybe when the bikes are on the roof you need a reminder, like hiding the garage door opener in another place than usual, or hang something from your rear-view mirror to remind you. Of course, after this has now already happened, you will always be extra cautious, and it will never ever happen again. (rockon)

 

[skyhawk]

(eek2)

Sounds like a Chevy Chase moment!

Maybe when the bikes are on the roof you need a reminder, like hiding the garage door opener in another place than usual, or hang something from your rear-view mirror to remind you. Of course, after this has now already happened, you will always be extra cautious, and it will never ever happen again. (rockon)

There's a market for 'max Height warning' device.. that will surely sell.
Sophisticated sensor on the roof that will remind you when you are few meters from the obstruction.

For now, you can program those 'low height detection' into your GPS
as a POI. Then activate the 'warn me when approaching a POI' location.
The GPS will announce Like 'Low height ahead 100 meters.. low height ahead 50 meters.. and so on. ". I can easily program this in my tomtom 930. No idea if other gps allows for this.

 

[thaxman]

Maybe when the bikes are on the roof you need a reminder, like hiding the garage door opener in another place than usual.

Like strapped onto one of the bikes!

 

[Olestra]

Hehe, ripping my roof rack off is one of my biggest fears. I always joke with my friends that I'm going to peel my roof off in a parkade, good to know Mazda thought about this and designed the fixed points to bend away.

I had to reverse back out of a parkade ramp once after my cargo box hit the height restriction bar. Luckily no car came in behind me.

 

[scruffydog2]

My wife just did the exact same thing with bikes on top and hit garage.
Did you ever find out the cost of repair of fixed mounts and plastic rails?

 

[lindsayt]

Sorry to hear it scruffydog! Sorry also that I didn't see your post sooner. All told, my garage hit cost me $550 - $400 to have the car fixed, $70 for new rails, $55 for a new front fork on my wife's bike, and roughly $25 in random parts to fix the bike and rack. My labor, of course, was free to fix the bike and the rack.

The fixpoints took about 3 hours for the shop to replace - apparently it requires dropping the headliner, but that also probably means you could do it yourself - my fear was that they were welded in place, but based on the description of the job it sounds like they're just bolted in place, with the bolts under the roof, hidden behind the headliner.

In my case at least the only parts on the car that needed replacing were the actual fixpoints and their bases; but the entire rain gutter is a single part and costs ~$100 for each side. With tax and delivery, the parts would be about $250-300 if you did it yourself; in the future I'd probably try that route, but on the other hand the shop did it quickly and for very little labor.

Since the front bar on my rack was bent I had to replace that, but instead of buying a new rack kit from Mazda (or Thule) for about $300 I just bought a pair of Thule LB50 load bars from REI, drilled out the rivets on the old load bar, carefully cut and drilled one of the new load bars and used metric bolts of equivalent size (M6 IIRC, but it could have been M5) along with washers, lock washers, and lock nuts to bolt the new bar in place. I was concerned about getting it right, but I worked carefully with my brother's help and it appears to have worked perfectly - I used the car and rack to haul our bikes 200 miles last week without incident.

Last remaining issue for me is to get some copper red mica touch-up paint and paint over the scratches on the roof before they rust...

 

[skyhawk]

temporary solution while waiting for future technology:

http://www.mazdas247.com/forum/showthread.php?t=123780279

 

[mpvue]

I mentioned in another roof rack thread that yakima used to make a little magnetic 'pop-up' sign that you put on your hood. while driving, the wind kept it flat, but when you slowed down, it would pop up reminding you about the bikes on the roof.
I've worked in bikes shops and we used to fix a lot of damaged bikes, especially once SUVs and mtn bikes w/ tall seatposts became popular.
I've fixed some bikes that fell off of rear racks as well; one guy had it happen TWICE, once right after I did a serious nice resto job on it. I was sick that I had to work on it again.

 

[southpawboston]

to the OP: ha, my wife made the same exact mistake once! we had a mazda protege with a yakima roof rack. amazingly, nothing broke and the car only wound up with one small ding from where the bike tray tilted back and tapped the roof sheet metal.

kudos to yakima for designing the rack the way the did: when the bike handlebars caught the garage, the force on the rack towers caused them to release, which allowed the rack to rotate and also slide backward. the bike was fine, the rack was fine (just came unattached), and the car had only one small ding which we lived with. phew!

 

[steinwayb]

Cheap Solution to prevent this type of accident

I too use a roof rack to carry my bike from time to time. Here's what I do to prevent myself from forgetting it is up there and crashing into the garage.

I ALWAYS place an open ladder right at the end of the garage near the overhead door, so when I come home I am forced to get out of the car and move the ladder prior to pulling the car into the garage. This trick has never failed. Even after a long drive, when you get out to move the ladder, you will see that your bike is on the roof. You will probably remember why the ladder is there in the first place at the moment you see the ladder blocking your way when the gargage door goes up. Works every time and costs nothing.

Of course, you could place a trash can, etc., but for some reason, the ladder seems like the easiest thing for me to use.

 

[skiph]

My garage door opener died a long time ago...thus have to get out of the car every time to open the door...this works every time also.