Thanks mate. Local Thule dealer has responded to my initial enquiry already. c. £230 for the entry level square bars with a single cycle carrier or £330 for the aluminium wing bars and the pro ride carrier which is a bit cheaper than Thule website RRPs...plus free fitting.
Do we think it's worth finding the extra £100 for the 'better' system? To be honest it's probably worth that to me just to have silver bars instead of black given the car is silver, it might be a bit less jarring on the eye!
The wing bars make a significant difference to the noise level. I already had the bars (from use on previous Audi's with fitted roof rails) and sourced the foot pack and fittings from ebay. As Herts3 says, a bit fiddly to set up first time on your own, but not difficult. And with mine there is a torque key allen key that clicks to let you know you've the correct load on the fixings when doing them up.
I used the Thule Evo Clamp 7105 foot pack, and the Thule Evo 5013 fitting kit, plus the aerobars I had.
I'd have gone down the tow-bar route if I could, but that's a no-go on the S3 due to the exhaust design.
Aluminium wingbars every time. The cheap square ones do look cheap and as said above the wingbars are much quieter. Only time I'd go for the cheaper steel would be on a runabout if I occasioanally needed to move ladders or a few bits of timber etc
My top tip would be to go for Thule bars for 2 reasons. 1, the design is much nicer, the Audi ones stick up and are a bit of a weird design. 2, you can use them in any car in the future and prob only have to buy a fixing/foot pack. I have the Thule black Evo wing bars which are very good and silent. I also bought a nice Audi bag for roofbars which keeps them scratch free in the garage.
Thanks. Things moved very fast when I contacted the dealer and the Evo wing bars and ProRide carrier are getting fitted in an hour's time!
if you are paying £330 then I’m not surprised the dealer acted quickly! They are £267 online!unless you mean with the proride carrier too...
£330 is for the wing bars, clamps, fitting kit and the ProRide cycle carrier, fully fitted - thought that was pretty good.
£267 is the wing bar price on it's own is it not?
Yep that’s an awesome price. You must have got around 20% discount on the official Thule prices. Nice work
Good stuff, can't quite beat mine though - £100 for unused roof bars and £50 for an unused cycle carrier, both Audi OEM. Recently realised the carrier didn't have the keys with it but you can get them cut on eBay (with the code on the lock) for less than the price of a sandwich.
I'm also not 100% about mounting bikes on the roof but unless I hear from Saris otherwise, I don't think that we have much choice. If I can, may carry the rest of the family bikes on the boot (though that's problematic with women's & kids' bikes as they don't have a straight top bar!)
By the way, the Audi one comes with a 4 Nm torque hex key too for tightening the feet, it's just the width adjustment that requires 8 Nm hence they suggest you go to an authorised workshop! I've ordered a torque wrench set, which will come in handy for this and also for my bike
Just to play devil’s advocate...
Do you really need to carry your bikes on the outside of your car? I’m genuinely not being facetious - and the short answer from you might be, yep, I have to transport MORE than 2 people as well as bikes. But if the answer is I just need to carry two people and two bikes, then a Sportback S3 can carry two full size mountain bikes in the rear, with the back seats dropped (obvs), and the front quick release wheels removed on both bikes and laid on top.....
Avoid the Saris Bones type racks, they look cool, but they’ll **** the paint on your rear bumper. Honestly, they will (based on experience with an older car I thankfully didn’t care much about at the time)...
Maybe I'm OCD but shouldn't the bike face the other way?
Really stupid question, Iv never had a bike carrier, or used one, how do you get the bike up there? Do you mount it on the floor and then use the carrier to get it up easily and slide it on the bars? Or attach the bike to the carrier on the car? Because the Thule accessories just slide in right so to me it makes sense to fit the bike to the carrier on the floor and then slide the carrier on the bars?