Now, this week’s Price Points post may seem a little bit niche, but bear with me! We’ve recently bought a new (to us) estate car; our old one was just that… almost 20 year old.
Our old car was a VW Passat estate and we loved it so much, we simply upgraded to a newer version. They’re attractive, really reliable, can take a bit of roughing up and have a lot of boot space.
Even with all that room in the back, there are often occasions that we need even more. Being in the vintage & antiques business, we regularly need to transport bulky bits of furniture that we buy at auctions, markets and boot sales. Items that are too large to fit inside the car; that’s where the roof rack comes into play.
It’s only when I looked into getting some kind of universal roof rack that I learned that there isn’t really such a thing. Well, there is, but I wouldn’t be that trusting of their safety when we’re steaming along at 50 miles per hour along a motorway in high winds!
VW Passat estate roof racks are made specifically to fit on the ‘flush rails’ that come as standard on this model of car. Our old, pre-2014 Passat estate had a different type of roof rails so a swap wasn’t possible.
After scouring the internet and reading up about load limits, bar measurements and security measures, I’ve arrived at this VW Passat estate roof racks shortlist…
- Maypole locking aluminium solid rails cross roof bars for VW Passat Estate 2014+: £69.95, eBay
TUV/GS tested to 90kg
Lockable: comes with 2 keys
135cm - Green Valley roof rack rail bars, lockable, compatible with VW Passat Estate 2015-onwards, flush rails: £99.95, AmazonMax load capacity: 100kg
Lockable – locks bars to vehicle
Dimensions 107cm x 3cm x 2cm 3 Years Warranty - Thule SlideBars package: £362.95 The Roof Box Company
Maximum load limit: 75kg
Thule’s SlideBars won a Red Dot product design award in 2011.
Package comprises foot pack, aluminium slidebars, adapter kit and locksFoot Pack: The Thule Evo 7106 Foot Pack may only be used on vehicles with flush rails. It has a maximum load limit of 75kg, so this is the load limit for the whole system. It’s always important to think about the weight of the roof bars – 12.5kg to 14kg for this whole 2 bar system, depending on bar length – the weight of what you fix to them and the weight of what you are carrying.
SlideBars: SlideBars include a standard T-track slot in the top of each bar, which must be used otherwise of course the bar cannot slide and the benefit of the whole system is lost!
Adapter Kit: The Adapter Kit contains the essential components required to fix the roof bars to the vehicle.
Locks: One Key System locks are included. We have a free lock matching scheme for all your Thule gear which, as a customer, you may continue to use any time you want. This means that you can use the same key for most of your Thule products. In practice, only having one key for all roof mounted bike carriers is the most useful part of a ‘one key system’, a system which is offered by all the major brands we sell.
shop VW Passat roof racks
Some of the links on our blog are affiliate links. We may receive a small commission - at no cost to you - if you click through and make a purchase.
Prices & links correct at time of publication.
