Now we have our new Yeti it looks like I have to ebay my Thule tubular steel roof bars and Halfords (thule imitation) roof box which are joined together with 45mm wide rectangular metal fixings x 4.

I am trying to decide what roof bars to fit to the Yeti. We plan to keep this car well over 5 years. Atera? Prorack Whispbar? Thule? However, since the roof rails have threaded recesses ready to take the Skoda roof bar fittings I thought I should concentrate on Skoda bars??

I haven't been able to find pictures or enough detail concerning the fitting of a roof box. How does a roof box fit to the bars?

I would welcome anyones own experience on the Skoda bars and what roof box and/or fittings they have used?

Or another combination such as the Whispbar???

Hi Gary

I'm in the market myself for some bars and spotted this thread which may help you decide:

http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/203008-yeti-roof-rack/

Edited 10 January, 201214 yr by Michael G

Not sure why you need to ditch your current kit. If you already have Thule footset for roofbars then even if your bars are the wrong length then it is only about £30 for new bars. If you don't have footset then best part of£100 for new Thule. I have two different lengths of bar, a standard footset and one for roofbars- as well as four Thule bikeholders, a roofrack, and a roofbox acquired over the years. When I changed car last year only expense was£25 for footset adaptor for new car.

Worth having a look at options rather than spend big bucks

Not sure why you need to ditch your current kit. If you already have Thule footset for roofbars then even if your bars are the wrong length then it is only about £30 for new bars. If you don't have footset then best part of£100 for new Thule. I have two different lengths of bar, a standard footset and one for roofbars- as well as four Thule bikeholders, a roofrack, and a roofbox acquired over the years. When I changed car last year only expense was£25 for footset adaptor for new car.

Worth having a look at options rather than spend big bucks

I'm with you here superbfan. The OP just need to change his bars for longer ones. The four clamps that hold the roof box to the Halfords bars can easily be undone surely and re-clamped on new bars? So you just need to change the bars and perhaps the feet. No need for a new box.

You get two different ways to attach things to a roof bar. The way you have it with a clamp around the bar and nasty bolts pointing down, or the more expensive way of having hanging T-bars (on the box or bike rack) that slot in the open groove at the top of appropriore bars. Your Halfords ones might just be rectangular hollow extrusions without this channel at the top. When you get new bars get ones with the channel system (the Å koda bars have these channels) if you are buying a new roof box. You can still clamp your current box around the new bars even if they have a channel system, but at least it leaves you the option to get a channel system roofbox in the future. It is a universal system by the way so any box/bike rack will fit any rail. You don't have to fit a Thule box to a Thule rail. I have a Kamei box on Å koda rails and my bike racks are all Thule. Everything fits fine together.

This topic has been covered before, and if you sign in and use the search function you can find all the relative posts.Just type in Roof bars and all the relevant topics are displayed, then just wade through each, there aren't too many.

My combo is 127cm Thule Aerobars, Thule footpack 775(which is for the square bars or the aerobars) and Thule Atlantis 200 roofbox. You can get all the relevant info from the car selector on the Thule website. Skidrive.co.uk and roofracks.co.uk are both very good online dealers and of course e bay has dealers who sell their wares on the site. I sourced the footpack for my bars and bought my roofbox off e bay.

I have travelled to France and back a number of times with the roofbox on and had no problems at all and have been using Thule bars and boxes for over 14 years with no problems.

The Thule selector originally stated you need 120cm bars for the Yeti, that's wrong you need the 127cm bars, the 120's are just a little too short. The Thule box has a clamp that that grips the bars and is simplicity itself,you just turn a knob in the box and the clamp closes or opens dead easy.

Thule also sell some excellent quality bags that are shaped to fit the boxes and can be bought singly or as a set, the nose cone shaped bag is a clever design that lets you take full advantage of the space at the front. Thule Go Pack 8006 3bags and the nose bag £90, pricey, bought mine off e bay,and saved about £40 but when they come up they are quite popular.

The previous post I have commented on re roofbars is titled "Roof Bars anyone got any yet"

Hope this helps

Edited 12 January, 201214 yr by redcar_reds

I purchased a really good set of Aero style locking alluminium roofbars from www.flli-menabo.it in Italy, they supply Lidl. The model is called a Brio XL with 135cm bars. I paid 108 Euros about £90 including shipping. Contact Manuela at [email protected]

I really want to get roof bars and a cycle carrier for my Yeti, my decision will really come down to cost, and I haven't committed to purchase yet because I feel that I want to get better value for money, at current prices with Skoda official bars at £150-165, they seem the better value than Thule, where most retailers aren't offering them for much less than the Skoda ones. I have been looking ever since I got the Yeti in september, and still haven't seen a price that makes me go ahead with a purchase.

Aaaargh I have just updated my footpack to 775 (from 755 I think) but my old aero bars are 120

so near yet so far

A divorce is looking more imminent as I said the old ones fitted

As previous posters have said, you should be able to trade them in to at least get something for the old ones. But you might get more for them via ebay, who knows?

www.roofracks.co.uk

I'm no in any way affiliated but am a repeat happy customer, having bought 3 sets of roofbars, cycle carrier and roof box from them.

I have the Thule wing bars, 775 footpack and Atlantis 200 box. The benefit of the Škoda bars is that they sit a little lower than the Thule affair, but I am more than happy with my setup and it did us easily for a weekend camping at CarFest with the boot only filled to window level. I barely noticed it was there when driving.

Škoda Yeti by weasley_one, on Flickr

In one of the link pictures it looked like the aerial had been removed. Do you fit your box with the aerial in place, with the box to one side, or in front of it. Or do you remove the areial to centre the box?

I don't touch the aerial. It sits nudged up against the back of the box and actually helps as a centering mark to get the box central and in line with the car's centre line.

Oh, I use the 'T Track' fixings too, for an invisible box-to-bar fixing and also freeing up space inside the box compared to their quick clamps, which have massive handwheels to tighten them.

Thanks Weasley

I recently got a set of Thule Aero bars with 775 feet on Ebay, the feet are now on my square bars (used on last car) as then I can use my stock of extra fittings. I'm on the lookout for a box and was not sure about the aerial.