Yakima Hold Up Bike Rack w/ Lock Cable

Product Description

, SportRack A21106B Sherpa 13 Roof Bag ">, Highland 35036 Black Universal Car Roof Top Basket Carrier ">, Rola 59100 Platypus Expandable Roof Top Bag ">, SportRack A21030 Roof Basket ">, If your definition of pumping iron doesn't extend to the 'clean-and-jerk-the-bike-onto-car' move, invest in the Yakima Hold up Bike Rack for fast, easy, low-effort loading of one or two bicycles. The Hold Up comes with the LockUp to secure the bikes to your rack when you hit the diner to fuel up on hash browns and bacon before a day on the trails. Yakima thoughtfully included an integrated bottle opener so you can pop a cold one after the ride.Product Features

• Bike Capacity: 2
• Compatibility: 1.25in hitch, 2in hitch
• Locks Included: yes
• Recommended Use: bike transportation
• Manufacturer Warranty: lifetime

This review is from: Yakima Hold Up Bike Rack w/ Lock Cable (Misc.)
I bought this setup today for $715 for four bikes expecting a quality rack, the idea is good but not well executed. Brand new out of the box the thing was dropping pins and ratcheting mechanisms in the box and when tightening the arms to the hitch support bar two of the recessed nuts stripped out with VERY little torque applied. I have no idea why they decided to mount the racks UNDER the hitch arm, which, if the bolts strip again or come out, the bikes will drop to the ground, weird, opposite of every other rack I've ever seen. The locking pin seem sort of iffy too, not secure at all and a little too easy to remove, can't imagine these working well bouncing down the road. Anyway, I returned to the store with the bad racks, got new ones and the same thing happened, stripped the bolts again and on the new one, (they seem to use garbage for hardware) the wheel trays had a huge cracks in them, I don't know if they just rotted sitting there or what but they were new. The ratcheting mechanisms for the rear wheel are cheaply made and I heard them pop and loosen just sitting there. I haven't even driven with this piece of junk, the thing wobbles all over the place, plastic parts are cracking and bolts stripping even though this heap has not gone 1 inch on the road! I called the dealer and he told me to bring it back and agreed, they are crap and said he had seen the same problems with these racks and I wasn't the first. I wanted to like it because it's easy to load bikes but I can't take the chance of losing $6,000 worth of bikes on the freeway let alone killing someone swerving around them when they do fall. Sorry, I wanted to like it, I just don't trust it. It looks nice, but so did my friends' ex-wife, both are defective. I guess I'll go back to the rack I bought at a garage sale for $15.

On edit, 8-1-11, I used it for about 100 miles because dealer told me to try it for a day and I could return it until they got another in, so I did and one of the ratcheting wheel straps stripped a couple of teeth off, I used velcro straps just in case it did happened although I don't believe the wheel would come completely out of the tray because the next tooth on the strap would have caught and prevented it but it did loosen which was annoying on a $700 rack. The bikes did feel secure with the front wheel ratcheting mechanism but another problem I had was wobble and my sons' hand grip was shredded by the quick release on my seat post. Another annoyance was that if you put the ratcheting front wheel lever too close to the front brake on my wife and sons' bike it would hit the brakes, if you put it away from the bike it was past top dead center on the wheel and I wasn't confident that it would hold. The odd thing was the bike closest to the hitch was the most wobbly, that section of the rack felt weaker for some reason whereas you'd think it would be the fourth and furthest from the hitch. Another thing was after pulling the pins and lowering the bikes for access to the vehicle, the pins would not go back in with the weight of the bikes on it, I had to unload the bikes to get the pins back in, I guess the tolerances are so close there cannot be any weight or the holes go out of alignment because it works fine with no weight on it. Anyway, back to the drawing board. Am I being too picky?