yeewiz

A Skybox 16 is 36" wide so you would be right in that case. But it wouldn't be difficult at all in other situations. My GF's has got the wagon in Dallas so I can't measure but the roof rails are, what, 40" apart? I thought I had a Skybox 16 but I actually have a Skybox 12. A Skybox 12 is 24" wide with the feet about 20" apart. So position the skybox in the center of the cross bar and you have 10" to each rail. Now pretend you weren't paying attention to loading and you put maybe 200 lbs in the box, and lo and behold, you have a lot weight in the center. The unknown here is I don't know how rigid the Whispbars are in the thin dimension, and I don't know what the clearance is. "constant" says a few mm and if few = 3mm, that really isn't a lot. Hit a bump too fast and it wouldn't be surprising to me if there was contact. Don't get me wrong, I want to use the S44 bar, but until "constant" measures the actual clearance, the physics here bother me.

oh, constant's picture of his Skybox in his garage inspired me to shoot my box as stored in my garage. So here's my box when not on the car:

constant

Bob, sorry I haven't gotten around to measuring the actual clearance yet. We are having a bout of bad weather and really cold temps here, so the cargo box is off due to snow and my overall lazy reluctance to go in the garage. I think the weather should clear up for next week, so if I get a chance I'll reinstall it then.

On a side note, the Whispbars are really beefy and the bars themselves will not flex. It seems it's a combination of the Whispbar mounting clamps to the rail have ever so slight amount of give, and the attachment feet on the Yakima box have a thick foam pad that wrap around the bar. I presume the pads are there for dampening/non-marring purposes, but they also allow some slack in movement. I think the first thing I'm going to try is changing the foam pad out with a thinner neoprene pad with less compression, maybe a shore 60-70 hardness...

norsecarnut

When hauling more gear on the roof, I prefer the Thule bars, which we have rather wide out past the rails but I am excited to try these aero bars for when we only have the cargo box on the roof. It looks like they will be quieter and less drag than the long thule bars and fairing set up I've been using.

There happens to be a retailer of these nearby so I might even get instant gratification today!

I'll post photos with the Thule 2100 box soon.

norsecarnut

Anyone using the Thule box will have less clearance issues than Yakima box users because the various Thule boxes have clamps that tuck up into the box more snug and the clamp arms have less depth as well.

Spartan335i

Finally got to taking some pics! Still in the -20's though!!!


And before anyone says anything yes I can see the box is slightly off center !

Spartan335i

Could have gone with the 1800 model but I can say that I'm pleased with it (Atlantis 1600) especially since I will most likely be adding an A4 avant to the family next month so the size will match the A4 size even better! Fits my skis 178cm so I'm happy!

norsecarnut

You must not classic xc ski as those would most likely be too long - which is why I may get one of the Thule Ascent 1700 as it is as long as our 2100 but not nearly as wide. I sometimes take the Land Rover on trips and would like to just have the 1700 up there semi-permanent.

The black box on yours looks good. My 2100 is silver and I expect it will look a bit odd on the dark blue BMW when it gets out here.

Spartan335i

No xc skiing for me correct! The whole family alpine skis.

As for it looking odd you can always consider color matching it, as long as the paint used has the clear has a good flex agent you would be fine!

V70Cat

The flush fit of the S44 Whiperbars looks great. I plan to use it for a bike rack so I think that I can position the bars to not interferer with the sun roof? What do you think? Also do you think I will have problems with the mounting hardware of the bike racks hitting the roof?