Roof rails bent to hell… how common is this?

OEM rails are weak and flimsy, and a 1UP roof rack doesn't spread the load wide enough like that of a Thule or Yakima.

Well holy hell, that sucks. While OEM rails aren't always the strongest, they should be rated at least twice what that bike and rack weigh. I've personally had OEM rail-equipped Mazdas in the past with Rocky Mounts Brass Knuckles mounts and never had this happen. Make sure when you tighten the rack you don't bubba-tight the thing either, tighten it just enough to keep things from moving around. As it is, I'd drive that as-is to the dealer and see if they can replace under warranty. Tell 'em it was just that rack with a bike on it.

How heavy is the bike? Any chance someone may have tried to pinch it while you were out of sight?

Mudguard said:

How heavy is the bike? Any chance someone may have tried to pinch it while you were out of sight?

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It’s a hardtail single speed. It’s not heavy… I know it was the cross wind because it was fine the day before. I don’t think anyone was messing with it because it was never out of my sight (coffee shop was a walk up and I parked up front).

Was that an Ebike you had up there?

That tray is super narrow and is going to put a HUGE side load on the cross bar. I suspect that a tray with a wider mounting width the cross bars would be fine. Most Thule or Yakima trays are maybe 4" wide at the fork mount, which will support side loading much better.

Polk said:

That tray is super narrow and is going to put a HUGE side load on the cross bar. I suspect that a tray with a wider mounting width the cross bars would be fine. Most Thule or Yakima trays are maybe 4" wide at the fork mount, which will support side loading much better.

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It's a 1up rack, which a lot of people run. I can't imagine its because of bad design on that side of things.

It looks like the cross wind generated enough torque on the bike to drive the tray into the rail deforming it. Not surprising given the way that tray is mounted (not a great design for distributing the load along the rail). The corner of the tray will apply a concentrated stress to the rail which is a hollow aluminum extrusion.

There are numerous other stories on the internet about the factory Subaru load bars failing, so you are not alone.

Link to 1-UP user with the same failure mode back in 2015. See post #44 for pics.

WTF Subaru!!

Yes, the Subie cross bars are lightweight aluminum. I removed them and installed a Yakima system, much stronger. As well the Subie design has a curve to the bar which forces the bikes to lean towards the outside. Bad design. Yak and Thule cross bars are flat.

Well damn... that was a waste of money. Thanks guys. I don't know if I will be replacing them because the Yakima and Thule stuff is usually obnoxiously expensive.

Around 2010-2011 driving from Kansas into Colorado we encountered a wind storm. A few overturned RV's and semi trailers post wind storm AND LOTS of tumble weed. We ended up parked off i-70 during the worst of it. Anyway...we had 2 bikes on the back of our Thule T2 rack which was mounted to my '98 Ford Expedition. The winds bent/twisted the trailer hitch. The rack was fine. The bikes were fine. However, the wind was strong enough that it used the bikes a leverage and twisted the hitch. Unreal.

The new 3-5 degree tilt on the hitch went unnoticed until we unloaded the bikes. No other visible damages...Mother Nature's a b*tch.

I recently put factory rails on my Crosstrek. Had planned to install an upright carrier on them but after installing them decided I like my bike too much. Ended up with a hitch rack. Rails just looked too weak.

I've put some crazy loads on the integrated bars on my Outback with no issues e.g. 10 x 8' pressure treated 4x4s, but they are low and spread across the bars, that OneUp/bar interface does look like it concentrate a lot of force into the bars.

For our Palisade I went with Thule and their Aerowing bars do have a very slight curve to them.

CLDSDL43 said:

I recently put factory rails on my Crosstrek. Had planned to install an upright carrier on them but after installing them decided I like my bike too much. Ended up with a hitch rack. Rails just looked too weak.

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I have a North Shore for it also but that thing is a monster. It seriously weighs so much. I’m just going to go back to using it, even though it’s a pita for everyday use.

chiefsilverback said:

I've put some crazy loads on the integrated bars on my Outback with no issues e.g. 10 x 8' pressure treated 4x4s, but they are low and spread across the bars, that OneUp/bar interface does look like it concentrate a lot of force into the bars.

For our Palisade I went with Thule and their Aerowing bars do have a very slight curve to them.

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wood doesn't torque the bars sideways

factory bars are pretty weak. I used to work at a shop that did a lot of roof rack work, and anytime someone asked my why whatever accessory or another wasn't rated for their factory bars, my standard answer was that the OEM bars might be fine for static weight pressing downwards only, but anytime the loading comes from another direction, the OEM bars are going to be awful. So, side-loading from crosswinds on bikes, potential lift (not uncommon when carrying boats), that sort of thing.

It's for this reason that I've purposefully avoided OEM crossbars on every single vehicle I've owned.

And yeah, this shortcoming of OEM crossbars is a big reason why so many aftermarket bike racks have such a wide base. It's not that the 1up trays have a poor design. It's just that other companies make racks that do a better job of covering up the wimpy ass OEM crossbars that so many vehicle manufacturers offer.

I wonder if you clamped two pieces of angle iron onto the OEM bar with the 1 UP tray if it would make it rigid enough.

This is on an Impreza?
Doesn't look like factory Outback crossbars.

#mtnbykr said:

This is on an Impreza?
Doesn't look like factory Outback crossbars.

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Yea, Impreza wagon