AlbertQ7

I guess I would think about it this way: which is stronger, the hitch receiver or the rack? I put a 770 pound trailer tongue on the hitch receiver without worries, but guarantee that if you put 650 pounds of bikes on the rack, the rack would fail. So if the rack survives the bumps, so will the receiver.

sdevoll

I have the Thule T2 XT Pro, which has the aforementioned wedge locking system. I brought home 2 cruiser bikes from the shore over the weekend (100 miles). The bikes are about 35lbs each. The connection to the receiver was fine, no wobble at all. The trick when mounting it; as you are tightening down the wedge locking mechanism, I also rock the rack. Doing this ensures the wedge properly seats itself and makes a solid connection. I tried installing without doing this, and it was not as stable a connection. There was a noticeable wind hissing noise coupled with a few loose items in the back had the wife concerned the bikes would fall off. My handle bars sit higher than the roof line and were the source of the wind hiss. My bigger concern here is prior to heading to Florida with them (1100 miles), I need to find a way to cover the trigger shifters. I pulled off about halfway home to double check everything and all was fine. The bikes will sway a bit on the rack as they are designed to. It really isnt that bad of a movement. Even the occasional pothole didnt seem to have mach of an affect.

I typically drive in Individual drive select with the engine set to Auto and suspension and steering set to Sport. For this trip I set drive select to Comfort. This ride is smoother and perhaps that contributed to less noticeable bike sway. I also noticed my MPG dropped from 24.9 to 22.7 while using the loaded rack. For the trip to FL, once on 95, I plan to reset drive select to Individual in order to ride lower, then reset to Comfort when local driving. My concern here are driveways and speed bumps where the back of the rack "could" scrape.

Steve

nhatman

Think of it this way. The 770 lbs tongue weight limit is a static load limit. The actual load capability of the hitch would already take into account the dynamic loading or acceleration (g) from any dips or bumps from driving. So the fact that your bikes and hitch may have a static load of 200 lbs (which, btw would make your bikes 40 lbs each... that some seriously heavy bikes you have there) is not something I'd be concern about at all. And for what it's worth (probably not much), I'm an aerospace structural engineer.

hitchens97

Thanks I appreciate that.