Can a $95 Saab roof rack replace a $220 Thule rack?
Last week I sold one of the cars, but didn’t mention it was one I used to transport my bikes to mountain bike trails and to some longer road rides. It’s been six years since we bought the roof rack for the car we just sold, so I’d forgotten how expensive they can be. A Thule rack with the fit kit, towers, load bars, and two bike trays costs in the neighborhood of $400, which seems like a lot to me now! The load bars, fit kit and towers by themselves were $220.
Luckily I stumbled on a discussion of bike racks on a Saab owner’s forum while investigating an unrelated problem, and found that Saab has a branded roof rack system. They looked exactly like the Thule bars I already have, and sure enough, I found posts by two separate people stating the bars were sourced by Saab from Thule, and were compatible with all Thule accessories. Even better, the Saab rack cost $95 and mounted to existing holes in the roof of the car.
I’ve seen several brands such as BMW and Mercedes with obvious roof mount points for an accessory rack, but never knew the Saab 9-3 had them, because Saab cleverly put them beneath the weather stripping. Open the doors and peel back the weather stripping from the top, and you’ll see two nice little mount points for each door!
The rack took minutes to install, goes on without tools, and because it’s mounting inside the door, the rack is secured to the roof whenever the doors are closed and locked. The integrated mount points for this rack give it a clean look; sedans never look quite right with a roof rack, but this one is less goofy than most. Highly recommended if you want to cart some bikes around on a Saab 900, 9-3, or 9-5 sedan or hatchback.
I purchased the rack from Patrick Accessories, who sell accessories and some maintenance items for Saab, Subaru, and VW. They’ve been helpful and the price was certainly right. I’ll likely order from them again.