Sea Suckers

[mk7_bk]

i know a guy who has these on the top of his vette, they work

 

[bentin]

Yep, one of my neighbors has an R8 and it works fine for him. I still prefer a hitch rack to limit mud, hydraulic fluid and chain oil getting on my roof, but if I were going to add capacity from my 1Up, I'd probably get a SeaSucker, and I've owned Thule and Yakima roof racks in the past.

 

[Diggs24]

A roof rack on an R8? I cringe thinking of the bike nicking the paintwork and it's not even my car.

 

[bentin]

A roof rack on an R8? I cringe thinking of the bike nicking the paintwork and it's not even my car.

One reason I hate roof racks. Had a friend put a deep dent in the roof of my M Coupe from his pedal hitting the roof. I also had a brake line detach and throw hydraulic fluid all over the roof. It took me a while to realize that chain lube really likes to fly off at speed and causes quite a mess too. Never again, hitch or nothing for me, fortunately I have a rack that can be 1.25 or 2 inch, so it's easy to move from my car to the wife's.

My one funny roof rack story is that I used to have a self imposed vMax of 85 mph when I had a bike on the roof. Then I got a job in Frankfurt and frequently saw Germans driving with bikes on the roof at 250kph/155mph and threw that arbitrary speed limit out the window. At some point, a few of my bikes might have seen about 165 mph, probably near Guadalara. I'm not sure I'd trust a SeeSucker or a window clip rack with that sort of abuse though, the BMW had direct bolt on mounts, like Porsches have.

 

[JC_451]

^
Are you still friends with that dude?

 

[bentin]

^
Are you still friends with that dude?

Ha, yeah, nothing a little body work didn't fix. It was after the brake leak and both were repaired together. That poor car was rear ended three different times, all while I had been stopped for a period of time, all at red lights, and with my brake lights on. Amusingly, after I disclosed everything to the buyer, it came back with a totally clean CarFax.

 

[toastergod]

this is from personal experience. If your clear coat is thin the suction will separate the clear coat from the paint and you will have to repaint the roof. Sea Sucker paid me for this but it was a pita!! Other that that the product worked great. If you ride a lot, like I do; it becomes tiresome to set these up every time you take your bike. Especially if have thru axle mountain & gravel bikes and then a quick release road bike set up. A good hitch rack is so much easier to work with.

 

[dunkelweizen]

Thanks everyone for your input so far. Guess no one here with sunroof has tried them? I'm actually looking at their Monkey Bars to put a rail on for my canoe and not the bike versions, so no worries about flying chain lube. It says it will work on glass roofs (like on the Tesla S), but can't find any info about sunroofs. Trying to decide between the SeaSucker Monkey Bars or the Spring Creek suction cup ones - if they won't damage the sunroof mechanism...

this is from personal experience. If your clear coat is thin the suction will separate the clear coat from the paint and you will have to repaint the roof. Sea Sucker paid me for this but it was a pita!! Other that that the product worked great. If you ride a lot, like I do; it becomes tiresome to set these up every time you take your bike. Especially if have thru axle mountain & gravel bikes and then a quick release road bike set up. A good hitch rack is so much easier to work with.

Did this happen on your Mk7/7.5 or different car? And how long of use before it peeled your clear coat? Haven't heard of that before, but that's pretty alarming...

 

[br5]

Just received my 2 bike SeaSucker rack (Mini Bomber).

Does anyone have experience with a good location for placement of the rear tyre suction cup?

I placed the front part of the rack towards the front of the sunroof, but this leaves the rear tyre in part of the roof that has a lot of flex. Not quite enough room to fit the rack between the windshield and sunroof.

 

[dunkelweizen]

If you offset the placement to one side or the other car, there'll be less flex as it will be closer to the edge.
Or try placing the front mount on the very top of windshield if your bikes' back tires can extend onto the sunroof or the sheetmetal just behind the sunroof. That's assuming your chainring won't contact your roof with the angle you would introduce. You'll have to test to see if it could work.

 

[slipperywhenwet]

Mike Levy did a pretty good review over on PinkBike.

https://www.pinkbike.com/news/revie...n-cups-sea-suckers-mini-bomber-bike-rack.html

 

[IbifaHo]

Bought them some years ago for my Scirocco, used them few times with the golf too.

Really happy with them, fast installed. Doesn't move at all.

It was installed just after the sunroof, tried it also once fixed on the sunroof itself but I didn't trusted it (to much force on the sunroof.

 

[br5]

It was installed just after the sunroof, tried it also once fixed on the sunroof itself but I didn't trusted it (to much force on the sunroof.

Thanks for this. Good to hear the positive feedback. I’ll play around with it again in a few days. I think placing it after the sunroof wouldn’t work for me as the rear wheel gets in the way of the hatch opening which might get annoying. Does the scirocco have a largeish panoramic sunroof?

If you offset the placement to one side or the other car, there'll be less flex as it will be closer to the edge.

This would be ideal on some of their other racks but as this one (Mini Bomber) carries 2 bikes it can’t really be offset (unless just carrying 1 bike perhaps)

 

[IbifaHo]

Thanks for this. Good to hear the positive feedback. I’ll play around with it again in a few days. I think placing it after the sunroof wouldn’t work for me as the rear wheel gets in the way of the hatch opening which might get annoying. Does the scirocco have a largeish panoramic sunroof?

Think it's aprox the same size as in the golf. After winter I'll try it on my golf with sunroof. But also on the scirocco it limits the opening of the hatch if set behind the sunroof, the hatch touches your bikes tire but stil opens enough to take your stuff.
But i've seen people put the front on the windshield (if it's not raining otherwise you're f*cked with the wipers.

 

[swcrow]

Minimalistic and nice, but uber expensive