Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsit's either ON or OFF, no in between, no safety, no warning.
Reviewed in the United States on November 24, 2014
This is an excellent bike rack. It allows you to keep your vehicle free of any crossbars, channel racks or other permanently mounted roof accessories that create drag and noise at high speeds. Some vehicles like mine, don't even have a factory roof rack option which limits me to aftermarket hardware which isn't very aesthetically pleasing. Enter seasucker, a removable rack that allows me to mount my bicycles on my roof 7 days a week while retaining a completely clean roof, free of mounting pods and cross bars or other unsightly third party accessories.
The seasuckers work with vacuum cups which are mounted directly to the roof (or sunroof). Once the location has been chosen for the mounting, buttons next to the suction cups are pumped in order to vacate the air that is between the vacuum pumps and the roof surface. (It helps to moisten the mounting area, therefore increasing the sealing action between the painted surface and the mounting cup) Once all the air is gone, the pump button remains in the fully pushed position, thus indicating to you that there is no more pumping needing to take place. after all cups are in place, you can lift your bicycle on top of your car and finish securing it to the rack either with the skewer mount or the optional thru-axle mount.
At highway speed the rack works fine, the manual states not to exceed 80mph but I have taken the car up to 100mph (i was running late) and it exhibited no signs of failure or near failure. I have also switched lanes at high speed and noticed that the bicycle does not go anywhere nor does it even exhibit any signs of near failure or rattling, or anything of that nature. the system works.
My only concern with this product is the fact that the system has no way of telling you, inside your car that all the suction cups are still fully attached. It has happened to me that I stopped at a gas station to get snacks and when I returned to my vehicle found one of the suction cups with no vacuum against the roof. I easily pumped out the air and continued on my drive, but this small nuisance leaves me with wracked nerves every time because I have no way of knowing that the rack is always in 100% working order without having to get off the car and visually inspect each suction cup. if i had a thule or yakima rack i would be 100% positive that the rack is doing its job (unless i flip the car over) but with this rack I know the rack is doing its job but there is a slight, small, minute chance that it isnt. There is no failsafe, no failure warning, no backup system, and worst of all no protection between the bike and the car. If it were to fail, the damage to the vehicle and the bicycle would be somewhere between severe and catastrophic.
For storing, I recommend storing the rack on a flat surface or upside down with the suction cups facing upwards. The contact point between the vacuum pod and the car body is critical, and if the suction pod is deformed for any reason, it will not seal no matter what. It is important to make sure you store it without any hardware making contact with the vacuum pods. I learned this after storing the seasucker on top of some metallic parts, the next morning I was not able to get 1 cup to seal properly and after careful inspection realized one of the cups was slightly dented, thus preventing the sealing to take place. After a while, the vacuum pod returned to its original shape, but it took some coercing/massaging and waiting.
I own 2 seasucker talons, I use one with my mountain bike (thru-axle mount) at least twice a week, and the other is used with my road bike (skewer mount) once a week. I have also mounted both my wife and I's mountain bikes simultaneously with no problems.