Crossbars installed to carry kayak

[flowerman]

Just installed the roof rail crossbars on my 4S so I could carry a kayak. The owners manual has a little video but several steps are shown quite quickly and if you have never installed one before you are very likely to get quite frustrated.

At the .21 point in the video you must insert the locking outer cover piece into the rack where it functions as a lever. You must do this exactly as shown.
At .38 in the video you have to push that same piece down - a lot harder than it shows in the video - until you feel the clamping unit snap into place. I was quite sure the amount of force I was putting on the pieces of plastic was surely going to break it. It didn't. Hope this helps someone

Sponsored

 

[EvSwimmers]

hmm, did you install rails or the crossbars?

 

[flowerman]

hmm, did you install rails or the crossbars?

Good point! I installed the cross bars.

 

[pm4s]

Having never installed cross bars (chucked them in the attic for my Audi) what happens when you open the sunroof, is the clearance ok?

 

[OdoDog]

Answering the question on clearance- with crossbars in correct spot most roof boxes and accessories would appear to clear easily so that roof can be opened. Our roof box is an Inno and it works great. We have taken two trips so far see https://www.macanevowners.com/forum/threads/porsche-roof-rack-with-inno-cargo-box-on-4s.20234/

Also Good job @flowerman - adds to my prior post https://www.macanevowners.com/forum/threads/2025-4s-cross-bars.19815/#post-302372

 

[Paris92]

FYI: Roof rails can only be installed at the factory. Retrofit with OEM parts is not possible if not ordered as part of the original factory build..

 

[flowerman]

Answering the question on clearance- with crossbars in correct spot most roof boxes and accessories would appear to clear easily so that roof can be opened. Our roof box is an Inno and it works great. We have taken two trips so far see https://www.macanevowners.com/forum/threads/porsche-roof-rack-with-inno-cargo-box-on-4s.20234/

Also Good job @flowerman - adds to my prior post https://www.macanevowners.com/forum/threads/2025-4s-cross-bars.19815/#post-302372

Thanks. I wish I had seen your post earlier. It's exactly true that the video is totally inadequate as the sole instruction for installing the cross bars.

 

[IonPowr]

Just installed the roof rail crossbars on my 4S so I could carry a kayak. The owners manual has a little video but several steps are shown quite quickly and if you have never installed one before you are very likely to get quite frustrated.

At the .21 point in the video you must insert the locking outer cover piece into the rack where it functions as a lever. You must do this exactly as shown.
At .38 in the video you have to push that same piece down - a lot harder than it shows in the video - until you feel the clamping unit snap into place. I was quite sure the amount of force I was putting on the pieces of plastic was surely going to break it. It didn't. Hope this helps someone

Flowerman is right on the amount of force required. The leap of faith you have to make is that the clamp is set to the correct amount of torque when the crossbars are delivered. In my case, the force required for the first one resulted in the outer cover slipping, breaking off the small alignment tab, and didn't actually close the clamping unit in place.

Each of the 4 clamps was apparently set too tight and needed to be loosened in order to allow the plastic outer cover to close the clamp as designed. Unfortunately, there is no way to know what the final torque or clamping pressure will be by looking at the clamp. And if you are able to back out the set screw to allow for easier clamping, you're in uncharted territory. The previous design of tightening a clamp to a defined torque was much more reliable.

The roof rail also has detent holes on the inside surface that a small rubber pin on each clamp should fit into. In actual practice, the rubber clamp base grabs the rail anywhere and doesn't easily slip into this position with the detent. And since it is on the inside of the rail and also hidden by the clamping base, you have no good indication where it actually is.

We've decided to go with the Thule crossbars instead.

Sponsored