Canoe on top?
 

No, it's not Penelope Cruz' new movie.. but if it was, I'd go see it.

Anyway...

We were going to go for a day-long canoe trip a few days ago, but hadn't car-topped our canoe since we sold our 325i and our ML430. We had the el cheapo four-foam-blocks-and-ropes system that always worked fine on those cars, but the FR-S AND our ML500 both have virtually nothing available underneath to tie the @#$# ropes to due to all the new-car-everything's-covered-with-plastic-covers design. Hate it. Rather than chance a 90 minute highway drive w/ the canoe tied to plastic, we gave up and made other plans for the day.

I guess I could buy a couple more screw-in tow hooks for the FR-S, but there's still only one in the front on the right side. I could go way underneath and tie to the two hooks on the frame way back in the front, but I'd worry about crushing the flimsy bumper.

Anyone else here cartop a canoe on your FR-S/BRZ? Not a kayak... a canoe. We've got a 17' Old Town Camper that we love, and it'd be great to get out there on it again. Any help or recommendations would be welcome.. I'm not opposed to buying a good roof rack system if necessary.

Thanks...

Barry

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15028 Here is the thread its from. Have fun reading :D

http://i1209.photobucket.com/albums/...o/image-2.jpeg

^ that's OBVIOUSLY a kayak

Canoe is way more weight

About how much does your canoe weigh..??


humfrz

It's about 40 lbs. The issue isn't the weight, necessarily, it's the wide-open design which creates a lot more drag and weird lift than kayaks do, and you can't put a canoe on its side like you can a kayak. Kayak racks are a non-starter.

Back to my original question... has anyone put a CANOE on one of the twins?

Thanks..

Barry

I doubt VERY much that that contraption was ever driven anywhere. If it was, well, the owner has a lot less use for his/her canoe, bike, and life than I do mine... ;)

OK... looking into ordering enough tow hooks to at least have some good tie-down points. There's two different part numbers for front and back tow hooks, yet our cars only come with one, and it fits in both locations. Anyone have any insight into why there's two different parts?!?!?

The numbers are SU00301544 for the front and SU00301545 for the rear. They're both listed at $24.09 at http://scionparts.villagetoyota.com/

Sigh... I have a headache.

Barry

Screams photoshop. Lighting is all weird.

I believe your tool tray in the trunk has a rear hook (at least my BRZ had one)

I went off searching through the subaru parts site. They also show two part numbers but converge onto one item. 57805F(G,J)000. Not a total surprise.

http://parts.subaru.com/productSearc...erm=57805FJ000

True, I have one too. The catch is that, for the canoe to be stable at highway speeds, I've always tied it down to four locations; left and right front and left and right back. That way, it can't shift front to back OR side to side. I couldn't find anyplace underneath the car in the back to safely tie a line, so I was considering getting another hook so I'd have two in the back. If there were two receptacles in the front, too, I'd just get a total of three more hooks and I'd be golden.

Gotta look at it some more.... thanks for the replies, all. Further thoughts always gratefully accepted... I guess I could just go for one of the big-buck solutions for the ML500, but it'd sure be nice to just be able to tie the darn thing down like I've always been able to do in the past.

Barry

So, after doing a bunch more research, I figured I'd report back in case anyone else is interested. Thule and Yakima both do NOT recommend any of their canoe car-topping products for the FR-S/BRZ, period. The dealer I spoke with in person mentioned a whole host of issues including aerodynamics, visibility problems, large amount of front and back overhang, etc. I DID put the canoe on top of the car at home w/ the four foam blocks just to check it out; there certainly was a lot of overhang and it did interfere with front visibility but mostly up; I could still see where I was going and left and right, anything above eye level and slightly to the right was blocked by the canoe. Probably not good. My canoe is pretty long and wide (16' x 36" beam, I think) so the weight was distributed towards the outside edges of the car's roof, but even so there was more flex in the roof than I was comfortable with, too. The canoe weighs 59 pounds. Another strike.

Just for kicks, in my quest to find places to tie down, I put a two-bike trunk rack on the car (that I used to use on my 325i). It fit fine and mounted securely, but I don't think I'd use that either. The thin metal of the trunk lid sure flexed a lot under even a little bit of test-twisting motion applied one-handed to the mounted rack.

Sooo, at least so far, I've ruled out car-topping a big canoe and using the trunk-mounted bike rack; the ML500 is now the official outdoor recreation family vehicle, period. I guess there's a price to pay when designing a small, light, cheap sports car; the roof and trunk lid panels are much flimsier than other (german) cars I've had in the past. On the plus side, it still hauls anything I can fit INSIDE the car just fine, and you can fit a lot in there. No complaints, but a little disappointed.

Thanks again for the help.

Barry

I use a two bike rack on a hitch, works great. I tried a trunk rack and only got a few blocks from home before I turned around and gave up, the lid was flexing so much I could see the leading edge in the rearview mirror. I also want to use something on the roof but after speaking to somebody at SOA in NJ I pretty much gave up on that idea. I asked about using the Seasucker and he said don't unless I wanted to watch the metal twist like wet tissue paper. He said it would most likely pull back from the edges slightly when it twisted and the car would leak forever. He also recommended not putting it on the glass because it's thin lightweight glass and it might not handle a load on a bumpy road without breaking.

For a canoe you could use a t-bar riser on the hitch and fashion some sort of apparatus up front to support it so that it doesn't touch the car at all. I probably wouldn't though unless it was my only car.

Get one of these and pull that bad boy!

http://www.hmds.ws/Pics/CT8FS.jpg