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This heavy-duty, versatile Yakima roof rack comes with strong, aluminum crossbars. It works with channel-mount and clamp-on accessories, plus each bar has tie-down points on the endcaps. Install to flush rails on your vehicle's roof.
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Alternate Instructions
Videos are provided as a guide only. Refer to manufacturer installation instructions and specs for complete information.
Hey everybody. Cooper here at etrailer. Today we're going to be taking a look at our Yakima roof rack system and how to install it. It does come in three major components that we'll get into as we start to talk about 'em on our 2022 Mazda CX9. Now if you wanna carry around some of those longer items like skis or snowboards, maybe need some additional storage like your rooftop cargo basket, or just wanna keep some of those dirtier items outta your car like mulch or maybe fertilizer. The first thing we're going to need for all those accessories is a roof rack system.
The first component we're going to look at in our roof rack system is going to be our crossbar here. Now our crossbar is going to be the Jet Stream Yakima crossbar which just means it has this nice arrow design to it where kind of starts a little fatter in the front and tapers off towards the back. Now this is just to help with some of that wind drag and noise that usually comes with putting stuff on top of your roof. It's going to be made of aluminum, which just means it's going to stay lightweight and very rustproof as we take our roof rack through the elements. And we even do have a T track here up top and it's my favorite kind of T track where if you want to install accessory you just have to push it kind of down and set it to wherever you need.
We're not going to have to pull up our wind strip and cut it to different specs. A nice way that our crossbar does interact with our CX9 is that there is plenty of space here in case we wanna use any clamping accessories between our roof and our crossbar that they just fit right through. Don't have to worry about damaging your roof at all for that to clamp down. Also coming down to the bottom of the crossbar if you can see that there is no wind strip, your kit will come with one. But because there is no permanent installation on this we have opted not to put our wind strip in today.
Then it does fit nicely into our sightline tower here which is just what's going to be kind of the mid piece between our crossbar and our fit kit. It does have this plastic covering when you're all done. That just pops right off. Now all of our inner mechanisms and tie-down points are gonna be behind this guard which is kept in place by this plastic lock core which is just used by a flathead screwdriver to kind of unlock and lock. But you can replace this with the sand key system for Yakima, which is a metal lock core using a key in case you have any other Yakima products or just want to upgrade to a key system instead.
The last piece to talk about in terms of our overall roof rack system is going to be the fit kit which is going to sort of have that custom molding to our vehicle. You can see that there's a hole right here. There's actually one right behind our fit kit as well and there's a little piece of rubber that you'll be able to see during the install process that really helps secure it all down. And looking on the outside here too our clamp does kind of fit into a little ridge on top of our CX9 system. So overall it just allows our roof rack system to have a really secure and custom fit to our CX9. Speaking about our system overall, our crossbars are 50 inches here which I think do sit really nice and flush here with our CX9. But I think if you did want to go up to the next size just to get some more usable space if you have a lot of accessories you wanna carry around or just want more easable access to something like rooftop cargo bags, that would be possible. The only thing is remember as you go farther and farther out from your vehicle the more dangerous it is kind of getting in and out making sure you don't hit your head. Now the install process for this roof rack system is pretty involved. It might be a little time consuming but as long as you're patient and follow the step-by-step guides in the instruction you might still find yourself running to a couple of snags. But thankfully we're gonna show you how that install process works right now. Now the first thing we're gonna need to do is set up our legs so they can go onto our crossbars. Now this is how it's going to come out of the kit. So the first step is going to be that we're going to need to remove this outer shell here revealing its inner one, and we're going to go ahead and take our flathead screwdriver and unlock this which just does expose all of the internals. We're going to need to take our included Yakima tool and unscrew this right here. And that will reveal secret door that we're gonna point out later. And then we're gonna go ahead and unscrew this a little bit ahead of time because this is where we are going to set up our clamps on. And then if we flip this over we can see that this by unscrewing that first bolt this is the little secret door that we have revealed that is going to be for the top of this guy right here. We are going to go ahead and take our plastic piece here, kind of just make sure that it's centered up with that and then drop in this piece which is going to be what secures our leg to its crossbar. You just kind of have to jiggle that into place holding it in place, flipping this around and then taking our included Yakima tool and tightening it down just a little bit so that way they become secured to each other but not enough that we can't fit it into our crossbar. Now that our legs are ready we can install them on our crossbar. Looking at our crossbar we have an arrow crossbar here today which means it's gonna be a little bit fatter in the front and kind of taper off towards the back. That's going to be the easiest way to tell you which way is the front and back. But we're gonna go ahead and flip it over. And we went ahead and marked an arrow facing towards the front, which really helps us whenever we have to install using this crossbar. So if you're looking for something to help you out that could be a good idea as well. Taking off our end caps here on both sides we are then going to go ahead and grab one of our legs and then we are going to use the included measuring strips on here that you may or may not be able to see. They're kind of difficult. And then we are going to go ahead and take our included leg here, slide that in. And our measurement is 38 and seven eighths. So we're gonna go ahead and find that on our strip and making that measurement line up with the back of our leg. And now we can go ahead and take our include Yakima tool and tighten them down a little bit but we don't wanna tighten them down all the way 'cause we still need to set the pitch. So taking a look at the leg of our crossbar system we can see the little bolt down here. So what the pitch basically means is we go ahead and push our tower towards the front of our crossbar. This is going to be the A positioning, B is going to be with it kind of sitting in towards the center. And C is going to be if we move the bolt towards the back. Now the measurement here and the pitch can be different depending on the system and your vehicle specifically. So make sure that you are checking which ones you are going to need. And this case we are going to need the C so we're gonna go ahead and take our included tool and tighten it down in this position. Now with our legs installed, we're going to go ahead and put our pieces in that make up our fit kit. The first one is going to be this pad here that actually has the same number regardless of of it's the front crossbar, the back crossbar, left or right. They all have the same code on them. We're going to go ahead and take it, making sure that our arrow is pointing out of our crossbar and come to about the middle of our crossbar here where we'll be able to see where it's going to just clamp right down into place. You'll hear a little click. That'll let you know that you did that right. (click) The next one we are going to do is going to be one of the sides of our clamp and we need to go ahead and take our fingers real quick and remove the retaining clip right here. And then this guy should just slide right in. (clanging) But you may find yourself needing to loosen it up a little bit with that same bolt that we did earlier if it's giving you a little bit of trouble. (clanging) There we go. And then we should be able to fit our piece around those hooks down there and then when we give it a good tug up you'll notice that it is in place and then we'll go ahead and replace that back in. Now if we come over to the front you'll see a very similar system that we just go ahead and pinch and we'll have go ahead and loosen that up. And for this we actually want to tighten this bolt back down because we are going to be fitting this between this hole right here, which means that if we don't tighten down this bolt that our clip is not going to be able to get past that. The process is going to be the same over on this side here. I did just wanna go ahead and point out that our clip here, R9, is going to be the one that sits inside our inner crossbar and our clip R14 is going to be the one that sits outside of our crossbar. which is designated in the instruction manual. Now that our crossbar is ready to go we're gonna have to know where to put it. So by taking a soft tape measure we're going to start at the front of our front crossbar. And since we already took measurement out of our construction manual we're gonna know that that's 28 inches. We're gonna go ahead and mark that. And then reaching over here to zero, we know that this is going to be where the front of our rear crossbar starts. Now your kit is going to come with some stickers to temporarily place here for you to mark that, but since we don't have those, I'm just gonna go ahead and make a little mark with my finger knowing that's where the spot is that I have to come back to. One nice thing about our crossbar system is that one of our clamps here has a little bit of a nub on it that will actually fit into one of the holes on our rail system. So that's just nice to know as kind of a secondary measurement that you know you're placing your rails in the correct spot. And try to line it up with your mark the best you can. But make sure that you go ahead and check the other side, make that measurement, and maybe double check your measurement over here after you move that side a little bit to make sure that you didn't accidentally move your first side. Now that we've checked the measurement for our crossbars on both sides and know they're in the correct place we can go ahead and tighten them down. Now if you are doing this by yourself, you wanna go ahead and choose one side and maybe only tighten it down about 50%, then go around to the other side and do that kind of back and forth increasing in value because if you do it completely on one side, you'll end up pulling your system all one way. And we don't want that. We want it to be evenly distributed. So we are gonna go ahead and just tighten this down a little bit, until maybe we can start to feel some of that resistance. And we'll know once we are at the correct setting because our included tool is actually a torque tool, which will not allow us to tighten down anymore once we are at that appropriate setting. Now that our roof rack system is in place we're gonna go ahead and put all our covers back. The first one is going to loop around this little point right here. And swing around. There you go. And once you have that in place, we're gonna go ahead and take our flathead screwdriver that we used earlier to lock that into place. So putting our final caps on, this one just fits right on the front, (snapping) and snaps right into place. And then do not forget the one on your crossbars. And then go ahead and make sure you do this for all four of 'em and then go hit the road. Now overall I do think our Yakima roof rack system looks pretty good on our 2022 Mazda CX9. Once it's up there, I think it looks very sleek and it'll help you carry around some of those additional accessories that you're wanting to. The installation process, like we said before, is pretty involved and can be tricky at times, but if it's something that you find yourself just setting up or getting on your roof and never having to take off, it's not that big of a deal that it's only gonna be that first time installation, really setting everything up that's kind of a pain in the butt. But once you get through all that I think that's a really good option for us. But that was a look today here at our Yakima Roof Rack System on our 2022 Mazda CX9. My name's Cooper and thanks for watching.
Average Customer Rating: 4.8 out of 5 stars (124 Customer Reviews)
This heavy-duty, versatile Yakima roof rack comes with strong, aluminum crossbars. It works with channel-mount and clamp-on accessories, plus each bar has tie-down points on the endcaps. Install to flush rails on your vehicle's roof.
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