Saris MHS UNO Bike Rack for 3 Bikes - 2" Hitches - Wheel Mount

Video Transcript for Fit Test: Saris MHS UNO Bike Rack for 3 Bikes with 2023 Kia Seltos

Hey, everyone, it's Evangeline here at etrailer. And today, we have the Saris MHS Bike Rack for three bikes with the UNO trays. And we're gonna take a look at how it fits here on our 2023 Kia Seltos. If you're familiar with the MHS, it's a modular hitch system where you can get different trays and different add-ons, and you can mix and match to find the best fit for whatever you're carrying. In our case here, these are gonna be the three UNO trays, which are gonna be the more lightweight, but still versatile trays. As for how the system fits on the Seltos, well, you can carry around a lot of things, but you do lose out on some features just because of how low the Seltos is to the ground.

Here, I'll show you what I mean. This rack does tilt away. It's the MHS base where you pull this handle, and it drops down to a tilt. Fortunately, there's a protector down there just to hit the ground, and that protects your hands as you drop this down, so that way, you can get into your hatch and open it up. But in our case here, because of our long mountain bike handle bars, we're not able to fully open up the hatch.

You see, we do make contact there. Still enough to come in there and grab whatever we need, if it's like a backpack or some helmets, you can still have access to that, but you don't have full hatch access. And when you need to bring this rack up, you just lift up and it snaps into place. So kind of a bummer that we weren't able to fully utilize that feature. An alternative would be the 2+1 base where you get two UNO trays and an UNO add-on instead, and that way, you can still carry on three bikes, but you do get a little bit more use with your hatch.

All right, let's talk about the bikes here. So the UNO trays can carry bikes up to 40 pounds per tray, so this will fit most of your mountain bikes and your road bikes. It's gonna be zero frame contacts, you have a front wheel mount, but you also have a rear wheel strap holding everything down, no need for adapter bars. When you wanna remove your bike, you start over at the strap, press the lever, lift up on the strap, and you'll remove it from its holder. And then I like to slide this out of the way or just tuck the strap behind the tire, so it's not caught up in the spokes.

Then you come over to the front, hold onto the bike with one hand. We're going to, if your hook is locked, unlock the hook, there's a spot for a lock right there. With it unlocked, you can then press on the lever that holds the hook in, press on the lever that holds the mast up, and now, you can grab your bike and go. While it does seem a little inconvenient to reach over the rest of the trays, fortunately, since again the maximum capacity is 40 pounds, you shouldn't have to be lifting extra heavy electric bikes up and onto the rack. Now, let's take a look over there on the trays, especially the cradles. Notice the width of those cradles Those are helpful for bikes of different wheel bases, but the maximum tire width you can carry with this is gonna be up to three inches. For the different wheel bases, you can adjust the straps back and forth just to hold onto them with the maximum wheel base being up to 50 inches. I like the UNO trays. I like how they still can fit most types of bikes, but they don't take up as much space or weigh as much as the DUO trays. But if you do have a heavier bike or a fat bike, you can just switch out one of those UNO trays for a DUO, and then you're totally fine. Now, with this kit being the 3+1 base, you are gonna add a lot of lengths to the back of your Seltos. So we're gonna measure from our bumper to the end of the rack, and that's gonna be 46 inches. If you have a small garage or you need to park into a tight spot, that's a lot of length you're gonna have to consider and see if you have enough space for. The next one is gonna be ground clearance. The hitch on the Seltos isn't that high up, which means our rack isn't that high up either. Let's take some measurements. End of the rack where the handle is to the ground is gonna be 9 3/4 inches. So if you go up those steep inclines like driveways or hills or even some speed bumps, you wanna be mindful that that might hit the ground. The next measurement is where your bike sit. So from the ground to the tray, that's gonna be 16 1/2 inches. That's how high your lifting your bikes up and onto the rack. Fortunately, it not being so high up means it's gonna be really easy to do that. Next measurement is where our hitch is to the ground, about 9 1/4 inches. So there's a slight shank rise to give your bikes more clearance, but the handle is only gonna be slightly taller than your hitch receiver is. And another thing you can do with this rack is you can fold it up to be more compact. With the Seltos, we've found that you have to use the angled position. Since this comes a bit close to the car, we're not able to fully fold up, since that cradle does make contact. But that's okay, Saris did account for it with that angled position. We're still able to get clearance, nothing touches. By the way, while we're here, you're able to see this fits into our two inch shank, and you have an anti-rattle bolt and a lock that's gonna match the lock cores given. With this space, you can keep everything secure. With all that being said, folded up, you have pretty good visibility through your rear window, but you are gonna lose out on visibility of your backup camera. Your taillights are still going to be visible, but your license plate may or may not pass for areas that require full visibility. If that's gonna be a big issue for you, you can drive around with this in the down position. (bike rack clicking) Just remember that measurement I gave about how much length this adds, and that way, that'll help you figure out if you have clearance when there are other cars around on the road. With all that being said, if you're looking for a modular hitch system to use with your Seltos, I honestly recommend using the 2+1 base and then mix and matching those accessories from that point onwards. If you really like the 3+1 base, then this would work best on vehicles that are taller and have a greater weight capacity for the hitch receiver. But it is nice to see that still works on the Seltos if you really wanna put it on this car. So that right there was the Saris MHS 3-Bike Rack with the three UNO trays, and you saw it on a 2023 Kia Seltos.