..........

 

Well I hope you followed the Thule rack placement measurment guidelines. They are printed just for that purpose. Seems to be owners here ignoring placement by photos I have seen that they posted on this board. The Yakima system I have sends the same measurement guidelines and I assume it is to prevent the same thing you experienced,and engineered by them for the strongest part of the roof structure. I haul 2 rather heavy canoes,{63 & 57 lbs} and have done so for thousands of miles on all kinds of roads including unpaved ones and have not had an issue except for some paint scuffing with road grime. There have been windshield cracks that have been posted here by owners who don't even have a rack system. Could be stone chip gone bad or bady installed windshield from factory. Just saying.

PaFitter

 

Out of all the years in my experience with Thule/Yakima, I have never heard of them cracking a windshield. This is just ludicrous. By doing a search here, you will find several topics on the Fit windshield cracking easily due to small impacts on a very thin and LARGE windshield and on several Fit's that do not have a rack.... Like mine. I had a crack that had nothing to do with the Thule rack system (correctly installed).

 

No problem this summer with my Thule system. It's older but they have not changed a whole heck of a lot over the years.

There was probably already some damage to the glass.

 

I HAVE a yakima system i bought off ebay with the q5 clips. copied the install from yakima online. i installed it EXACTLY right. i used for the first time this past weekend for 2.5 hours each way with a 199ft kayak on top. i did not exceed 65 and tried to stay 55 on the back roads. the boat did not shift and the racks did not walk any at all. and i got 35 mpg too! the only issue I have is running a bow line to the car. there's a threaded insert in the middle of the front bumper , rt side that i was able to thread a line through. but i really need san anchor in the center.