Straps for van with bars on top

[zalle]

Hi guys need a little help here,

My car has longitudinal bars on the hood, but it's the new version ones which you cannot slide straps under them (vw passat Avant).

Is there any system with hooks that work on these?
I don't want to put extra bars over these ones, and I don't like to use straps that go inside the car...
Thanks for your help.

[dtc]

I know what you mean, but keep in mind that the side rails are really only meant as an anchor point for a rook rack, not as a roof rack itself.

If you only have side bars, then I assume you are planning to use a soft rack strap but don’t want to run it through the car but just through the side bars? As the bars are mounted flush, the only option is to see if you can find something that attaches to the bar and has an eyelet eg a roof rack ‘leg’ that has a hole in it that you can pass a strap through.

However I’m not sure even this will work that well because a soft rack holds the board tightly against the roof (because the straps are pulling it down); an eyelet on the bars would hold the board a few inches off the roof (because the straps are pulling slightly upwards). You don’t want the board flapping up and down

Or just get a rack or put the board in the car and leave the kids behind

[zalle]

Hi, thanks for your answer. The thing is there are SO MANY cars with these utterly USELESS side bars... There must be something out there by now...

[oldmansurfer]

I did a quick search on the internet for "vw passat Avant roof bars" trying to figure out what you are talking about and came up with a lot of "48 inch car top cross bars" that are meant to put on roof bars only can't figure out if they will fit your car. Perhaps you can call a dealer? VW fan page? Ebay has a bunch of them and they include the compatible make and models which are VW passats

[zalle]

Well, thing is, I don't want crossbars. I travel a lot. Those bars make a lot of noise and they use a lot more fuel (at motorway speeds).

Petrol is expensive where I live.

[dtc]

I’m don’t think you should think of them as bars, just as fixing points for the racks - better than an in roof mounting point (which doesn’t allow you to move the racks back or forth) or the old version of attaching to the rain gutter (not strong ).

I’m still not sure how you can attach the boards properly even if you can find a way to feed the strap through an eyelet or something.

You can get pretty aerodynamic bars nowadays. And they take less than a minute to take off (well, mine do)

[LittleSkink]

Our car has the same style of flush roof rails and I use Thule wing bars for when I need stuff on the roof - roof rails are really strong and allow you to put bars where you need them, so that makes them an excellent accessory in my view, chose our car becuase it had them

As dtc says you can get the bars off in seconds if you need to, though the wing bar is pretty much silent and barely alters fuel consumption - cerrtainly way less impact on fuel consumption than some boards on the roof

If you did want a creative solution temporary I guess you could get some big clamps like market traders / photographers use and attach them to the roof rail and then strap to those, might be safe up to 30/40mph . . .
https://www.ebay.co.uk/i/282651048386?chn=ps

[zalle]

Ok, so I found a method. NOT for long journeys on the motorway, but great for going down to the beach. This was the test version. It looks better now: