Cycle Rack - VW Roof Bars or Thule aftermarket?

[Mag_Pie]

They do look neat. One thing I'd like to know about after reading through is whether fitting roof bars causes any damage to the bodywork. I don't mean scratching, I'm talking about possible ripples/dent where the foot sits on the roofline. I only ask as I noticed a friend at work with a Skoda occasionally fits roof bars and they look to fit in a similar way. I noticed when they were taken off there were ripples in the bodywork where the feet had been sat above the doors!

I daren't ask him about it, and for all I know they may not be manufacturer roof bars etc, but I just wondered how much pressure these roof bars applied when fitted?

[Jimble]

I wonder if they'd been incorrectly fitted? There is absolutely no damage to mine at all, they do clamp on very tight but not to the point of bending the metal, obviously you need to pay attention to the max weights of the car, bars and box as overloading could damage things too.

[p3asa]

When I used roof bars for a while (not on a golf) when I took them off I was left with the indentation of the rubber of the door surround not going back to being flat. So it meant when the door was closed the rubber surround still looked like it had the roof bars in it. 3rd picture down shows what I mean.

No amount of heating / massaging / creaming would bring it back to its original shape permanently. Not a big problem but I was paranoid about water / wind ingress.

[Jimble]

When I used roof bars for a while (not on a golf) when I took them off I was left with the indentation of the rubber of the door surround not going back to being flat. So it meant when the door was closed the rubber surround still looked like it had the roof bars in it. 3rd picture down shows what I mean.

No amount of heating / massaging / creaming would bring it back to its original shape permanently. Not a big problem but I was paranoid about water / wind ingress.

I was a bit worried about that tbh because you could see the indentation in the rubbers when the doors were open, luckily the doors of the Golf sit enough in the frame to flatten the seals out so no gaps.

[fredgroves]

I have Thule bars on mine, they come with some rubber tubing to be into the door seal trim to stop it prolapsing.