Yakima Timberline Tower w/ CoreBar Review for 08 EX35

Discussion of Infiniti's amazing (and underrated) sport-luxury crossovers, the EX35 and EX37. For 2014, the EX series will be renamed QX50, in line with Ininfiit's new naming conventions.
EX35WinterBeater
Posts: 113
Joined: Thu Jun 01, 2017 1:36 pm
Car: Summer: 2003 Honda S2000
Winter: 2008 Infiniti EX35

Post

Hey all,

A month or so ago I was looking into roof rack options for my new to me 08 EX35. I bought it back in May with the expectation of keeping it for 3-5 years so I’m buying all the accessories I need for it. I already had a hitch installed, have a hitch bike rack, and it was now time to find a solution to transport our kayaks. There weren’t a lot of options for our EX35’s, and no threads that seemed to have anything current. I’m a fan of Yakima as I had one on my old Subaru, so I went that route over Thule. The Thule was a little more money, and sat lower to the roof and wouldn’t have provided enough clearance for my kayak attachments.

I picked up the Timberline towers and small, 50” CoreBars. Because there hasn’t been any mention of these on the forum, I thought I’d share my experience. I thought I’d be in the clear to use the old Yakima locks I had, but apparently they changed the design so I needed new ones.

Once installed, the whole setup is very solid. While installing, I ripped the rubber pull tabs, which I was quite pissed about. When you take the towers out of the box and remove the front/lock cap, you need to unscrew a bolt with the provided tool that is setup to properly torque everything. I unscrewed the bolt, then pulled the tab to unlatch the strap. It was still firm, and the tab ripped. I learned that when you unscrew this bolt, then pull the strap from the backside to get the slack, then you can easily pull the strap out. Knowing this, the other three towers were easy. I will say though that Yakima made good, and sent a replacement strap to the shop I bought it from to replace it for me, I just haven’t picked it up yet because it works as is, and I rarely drive the EX while my other car is my DD. While this was a me mistake, Yakima provided good support, even if the instructions were a bit lacking. Otherwise, the towers feel very sturdy, although I am curious to see how the metal and rubber straps holdup over time.

I went with the CoreBars because they seemed nearly the same as the higher up ones (JetStream?) looks wise, and I couldn’t find any comparisons between them online, so I saved a bit of cash here. They come with a nice kit to mount in the towers, and it all comes together fairly nice. After measuring everything out, I finished assembling the bars to the towers and got ready for install.

After deciding exactly where I wanted everything lined up, strapping the rack to the roof rails was fairly easy. The towers have a center groove that you line up with the middle of the roof rail. Then the strap wraps from the back of the tower, under the rail, and is pulled into position in the slot on the front of the tower. With the provided tool, simply tighten until it starts clicking indicating that it is properly torqued. Do this all the way around, replace the front caps, lock the SKS locks and that’s it. Looks pretty good and seems rock solid.

We went camping in the Rockies (windy!) with 2 kayaks on the roof in J cradles and everything was great. The rack on my old Subaru had round bars, and the J cradles came with nuts molded into plastic pieces to screw and secure to the bars. These were awful, you couldn’t get them tight enough, I tore apart my hands on the end of the other bolts (that assembled the J cradle), and this resulted in going 120km/h and having the front of a kayak (still in the cradle) slide a foot towards the edge of the car. I was pretty hesitant the rest of that trip, so this year I went and got a couple regular nuts, and tightened them as much as I could with a ratchet wrench. That, paired with the different size of the CoreBar resulted in 0 movement, even if I got to 130-140km/h passing. I’m very confident in the rack now.

HOWEVER, WTF Infiniti??? So we get the kayaks on the roof and we’re ready to go. I go to tie down the bow and stern, only to find out the EX35 doesn’t have any tow hooks? This is an SUV (or CUV), my old sedan had these. Thankfully, the rear wasn’t an issue because my hitch had hoops for tie downs. But from what I can see, there’s nothing on the front. I ended up putting the hooks inside the rectangle opening of the plastic grille on the driver’s side. I was concerned that if a gust of wind came, it could pull on the bumper or break the plastic, but it didn’t seem to be an issue. That said, I still don’t overly like that solution and plan on finding an alternative. I may buy those things you put under the hood that have the loops on the side of the hood, but am open to other options as well. If it wasn’t for my hitch on the back, I’m not sure what I would have done though.

Overall I’m happy with the rack, install was easy, and it feels sturdy. I got a bit of a discount, so the total came to ~$500 CAD w/ locks. Luckily I have the attachments already, although I’ll need new adapters for my Powderhound as the ones I have are for round bars.

I hope people find this review useful, as I couldn’t find anything on this when I was shopping. If you have any questions, let me know and I’d be happy to help.

Image

Image


Return to “Infiniti EX35 / EX37 and QX50 / QX55 Forum”