RidgeLine Towers (Set of Four)

Just when you thought Yakima couldn't make their systems any more difficult to install, along comes the RidgeLine--a system of such mind-boggling complexity and useless installation instructions, that you'll spend a hair-tearing couple of hours just assembling and attempting to get this to fit on your car. Bar adapters that don't seat correctly on the towers; time wasted adjusting the towers (per the instructions) only to find that that anchoring clips cannot be installed with the towers in place; anchoring clips that cannot be properly installed according to the instructions; incomplete instructions; missing instructions; flat out wrong instructions. Did you forget to tighten the adapter clips for your round bars? No you probably didn't. The reason your bars aren't properly secured is that Yakima skipped the instructions for the final anchoring of round bars! Will you ever be able to remove the rack? Don't count on it. As soon as you loosen the assembly to get the rack off the car...the anchoring clips will slip right off the towers, and then you're back to square one. This is an expensive, complicated, system that will cause you no end of misery. Give up on Yakima and go with something else...anything else.

I'm just gonna go ahead and give these towers 5 stars. I've owned several different towers including the Q series and 1A but I'll have to admit that the RidgeLine towers are bomber. I've had these installed on tracks over the cap of a 2013 Tacoma for just a few weeks now. I've had these towers loaded with a 125 lbs roof top tent that sits on CoreBars. I drive 4 miles of rough gravel every day and my tent, bars and towers are fully intact and never wobble, shift, or move. There is a bit of a trick to getting these set how you need them but overall, it was a much better experience than my first with Q towers and clips. What I like most about these towers - they are actually constructed out of metal, with only a plastic front clip.