mhoran89

Looks great. I had local detailing shop do the same on my A8L with the little squares of PPF to protect the car's paintwork from the rubber feet.

michael sullivan

That's perfect. Thanks again Tucker.

SCWells72

Hi. A few questions for those who have done this.

First, a little background. I have a 2018 S5 SB and primarily want to be able to roof rack my kayak. I currently have SeaSucker roof rails, and while they work well for quick trips around town, I recently took a four-hour trip (each way) to/from the coast for some inshore fishing and was PARANOID the entire time that the suction cups would fail and my kayak would end up on the road behind me, potentially hitting whoever was tailing me. I'm planning to do such trips 2-3x/year and just want to be able to throw the kayak on top of my car, strap it down properly, and go without constantly worrying.

This looks like a great option, but I don't think I'd want to keep the rails on all the time. How easy are they to put on and take off, and how much time does it take to do so? One thing I do like about the SeaSuckers is that it takes about five minutes to put them on and about one minute to remove them. I don't mind if these rails take a bit longer than that, but if it's an hour install/uninstall each time, that would be good to know.

Also, what concerns are there about damage to the car's paint at the mount points? I see one comment about using PPF or similar to help with that. Any thoughts on how best to mount the rails to avoid paint damage, especially if I'm able to take them off when not in use?

Thanks much in advance for any info you're able to provide!

SD->DC

So i did this with my fiancé's A4 not my S5 but I learned a lot doing so. I bought the thule square bars, end plates and then the car specific mounting brackets. I also bought a little bit of ppf because i was scared too. Turns out the PPF was unnecessary but helped with the piece of mind. There are little button holes if you open the door under the paint that the brackets go into and the bottom pads are rubber and if you tighten enough, they will not move. the square bars definitely make a lot of wind noise, but are a cheap alternative to a more expensive cross bar. They only take 3 or 4 minutes to put on/take off once you do it the first time and figure it all out. hope this helps, let me know if you have any other questions!

michael sullivan

With sportback, the windows are frameless. The Thule bars have slim flat steel tabs that slip down between roof paint and top of rubber seal that is above the long aluminum trim piece that runs above all the windows. I see the act of slipping those flat steel tabs down between rubber and paint as a risk that pieces of PPF will help with. I plan on getting them added in a couple of weeks when my windows get tinted. Check pics of Tucker's red A5 early in this thread.Clearly shows where tabsslide under the rubber, and how his PPF pieces are fitted.

SCWells72

Thanks for the info. I went ahead and ordered the Thule kit for my 2018 S5 SB and installed it yesterday. One issue I hit is that the vehicle-specific measurements it provides--42 in the front and 39.5 in the rear--didn't seem correct. Specifically they seemed too narrow. I assume that's because the kit is spec'ed for the A5 and perhaps the S5 is slightly wider? I reached out to Rack Warehouse about it, and they said that the kit is specifically for the A5 SB and that Thule doesn't have a kit that's designed for the S5 SB. They've offered to allow me to return it, and they've said that if I continue with it, it won't be supported. Obviously others have done this, and once I widened the horizontal gap slightly, it seems to fit well, but I wanted to see if others who installed the Thule bars on their S5s had noticed the same thing or not. And if not, did I perhaps do something wrong during measurement and/or installation?

Thanks much in advance (again!).

michael sullivan

I can't imagine there is any difference in the structural roof of the S vs A body. The S5 is essentially an upgraded A5 platform. In any case, the Thule foot pack fits perfectly, and the measurements are for where the pack sits on the cross bars, which is readily adjustable. Key is to get the foot pack tabs installed properly with the little positioning pins under the rubber trim engaged into the Thule tabs. That secures everything.

SCWells72

Thanks. Yeah, my concern was the vendor saying that it wouldn't be supported under warranty, so I reached out to Thule directly and received the following response:

Based on that response, I think everything should be fine. I've also provided that to the folks at Rack Warehouse to close the loop with them.