Any advice on roof racks?
 

Just bought a mountain bike and I don't want to lug it around in my trunk forever... any advice on what kind of rack to get?? I've only checked out Audi's system, didn't really like what I saw, but they don't exactly have a great photo (or at least it didn't load well?)

I purchased the Audi system because I liked the idea..
 

..of using the factory provided mount points on the car. I also picked up one full-bike carrier attachment, it's the same carrier VW had been putting on it's Trek-edition Jetta's some time back, those work fairly well.

Have yet to put it on and try it out, but it looks and feels like a very high quality product, uses a notch-railguide setup for attachments. The black plastic/aluminum color scheme matches my silver A4 almost perfectly. I am going to take one of the crossbars into a shop and see how other manufacturer's attachments might fit onto it sometime in the next few weeks.

I did notice one interesting thing, it comes with clear stickers to put on the roof of the car where the contact points are. While I'm partially glad to see these, I hate to put stickers on the car that will be visible when the rack is off. I'm sure they are included for a reason though, and I will probably put them on for fear of paint damage. At least they are clear, hopefully they will blend in as well as some of the clearbra products do.

You might try to post on the gen-1 forum, as there is probably more experience there. I saw a gen-1 rack on an older car and besides a few fitment differences because of the modified roof line, it looks very similar to me. The attachments interchange between all the recent Audi/VW systems.

Re: I purchased the Audi system because I liked the idea. (link to a review inside)
 

From what I had read before on the VW forums, not much aftermarket stuff fits the Audi/VW rack's crossbars, because of their unique shape. At least Audi/VW do offer just about any attachment you need though.

I think the Audi one looks great on the A4 because the bars are sized perfectly for the car, and match it well, like you said. There aren't ugly black bars sticking out past the mount points.

Check out the article on VWvortex at <A HREF="http://www.vwvortex.com/features/project_cars/golf_18t/part_2.shtml">http://www.vwvortex.com/features/project_cars/golf_18t/part_2.shtml</A>. It's a great review of the VW/Audi roof rack system.

From the sound of it, those stickers for protecting the paint are kind of single use - they don't last long. I think I'd go with cutting a few custom pieces of scotchcal (i.e. clearbra) material to put in the mount point spots. It's important, as it keeps the paint from getting scratched up, in case the rubber mounts or the paint itself isn't perfectly clean when you put the rack on. www.xpel.com sells the scotchcal material in plain sheets to cut up.

Sedan or Avant? The racks that attach to the factory bars on the Avant are AWESOME...
 

nothing ever touches the paint. Thats the main reason I plan on getting an Avant. Both Yakima and Thule have specific Audi Avant bars, but the factory ones come in black and silver to match both colors of roof rails. If you've got a sedan, I"d recommend the factory system, for the same reasons already stated.

Thanks for the advice thus far!
 

So far looks like the Audi system is the way I should go... (I have a silver sedan btw. guess I should have said that b4, I wasn't thinking about that). Thanks for all the advice thus far!

Avant wheels.
 

Looking for a set of 6 spoke avant wheels.