Mazda 3 Roof Rack options

wsquared

Member
I have a 2008 Mazda3 5 door, that I would like to put a roof rack on to carry a very small kayak.
Having been to both the Thule and Yakima web sites and plugged in my make model, etc., I have less than a warm fuzzy feeling when presented with the various options. They boil down to either a system than pulls against the top of the door jams (pretty straight-forward there) or a system that appears to mount in proximity to the rubber strips that run along the roof line on both sides of the vehicle.
Anyone actully bought a one of these systems that they can weigh in on, or vouch for. Pics sure would be nice. My local Thule/Yakima dealer is worthless in this regard.
I've got a rear mounted bike rack for the Mazda that works great ultimately, but requires me to loosen the rear roof spoiler bolts to slide the vinyl coated metal straps to their correct position on the front edge of the hatchback door. They didn't catch that little gem when they recommended the bike carrier.
 
Yakima makes it. it's brand new and probably isn't up on they're site yet. it uses the control tower. i have an extra one, maybe we could work something out.
 
I have had two Thule racks between 4 Mazdas now. I currently have a door jam rack on my Speed3 with a bike carrier and a 4 ski carrier. I like the door jam better than the rain gutter. We have a Thule rain gutter rack on the 5 and it just doesnt seem as strong. You could pick my car up with the door jam attachment rack, it is rock solid!
 
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I like it and I have gotten a lot of compliments from the other Michigan members around (we have a pretty good group of guys and hang out a lot).
 
looking good, i got the old school plastic ferring(big mama jama) so that will go up on this spring :D

thanks for the pics
 
Fairing

I am looking to purchase the 44" Thule Fairing (872XT) for my Mazda 3 GT (looks like the one you have in the pictures). I previously had the old (very large) fairing that you could adjust easily to fit the contour of the car (I have had it on serveral of my vehicles). Looking at your pictures, I am concerned the new 872XT Fairing won't contour to the roof line. It has always been my experience that all points of the lower edge of the fairing should contact the vechile to properly direct the air over the rack. Yours appears to turn up on the edges. Have you attempted to fix this or is it "normal" for our application?
 
If you look at my setup, you can see that the deflector sits close to the vehicle w/o turning up.

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If you look at the deflector brackets that mount to the load bars, you will see that there are 2 sets of round cut outs/bracket.
When I installed the deflector to the brackets, for the 2 inner brackets, I installed the deflector to the outer holes. For the outer brackets I installed the deflector to the 2 inner holes( the ones closer to the load bars)
Hope this makes sense.
 
Yakima makes it. it's brand new and probably isn't up on they're site yet. it uses the control tower. i have an extra one, maybe we could work something out.

You still have an extra roof rack? If so, what is included? control towers, landing pads, crossbars, fairing?

I may be interested.
 
I've been looking at racks too, but have seen a few things about differences between Canadian and American cars... I'll assume you're in the US.

The big difference, for roof racks, is that the plastic gutter trim, in Canada, includes cutouts to access the plate where you can attach the factory rack, which from what I've read can only be bought in Canada. I saw the rack and crossbars at the dealer today for about $465 CDN... my computer tells me that's $382.97 USD.

The trim piece may be different, but the mounts should still be beneath the plastic trim. And the rack will bolt directly to the mount... no strap-ons required. Perhaps you've already come across this info... good luck
 
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Yeah, its nice that Yakima and Thule finally have racks mounts available that mount to the "fix points" in the roof gutter. Don't have to mess with ordering from the UK or Aus anymore...
 
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