Installed a 3rd party set of roof rails. Should I be worried about the trim?

1305 Views 5 Replies 4 Participants Last post by williamsji, Jul 30, 2019

Breaultk

Discussion Starter · Apr 25, 2019

Just installed a set of these: https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https://www.ebay.com/ulk/itm/163132586078

So it installs a bit different than the oem ones, as in the oem ones cover the entire piece of trim that you have to remove to install.

With these rails I had to cut two smaller pieces of trim to fit in between the two center cut outs in the rails.

Needless to say after the install I'm not super confident in the trim that remains. Water could easily get under where the rails are mounted and into the valley the rails sit in.

With that said, after removing the trim pieces I'm not completely confident that they would hold water out of these valleys completely right from factory either.

Is this something to be concerned with? I think you can think of the valley as a exterior piece, it won't allow water to get into the vehicle, and it's all painted and whatnot in there. Anyone have any experience installing roof rails?

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williamsji

· #6 · Jul 30, 2019

BBLee said:
i like that better than the OEM.... but it is expensive... (you can use nets or tie down stuff thru the openings, you can not do that with the OEM's
IMO, that section can handle water, I don't think the strips are water tight either, it will just flow out towards the end of the car, and or evaporate.

Yeah... those black trim pieces are not water tight.. they are cosmetic to cover over the fabrication and weld points in the body I believe.

Interestingly, in the new generation Accords... Honda finally figured out how to do the weld and bends on the roof top such that they don't need the trim pieces to cover weld points anymore... which is something I wish they had done on the gen5 CRV. Then again.. Honda probably figures a lot of people will just add rails anyway.

The current generation Accords also feature an aluminum hood too.. which is also a nice refinement.

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