I thought I would post some info about adding on a Thule rack to the factory rack. While the Thule site does not list a fit kit for the Terrain yet you can use the 450 Crossroad adapter to attach a Thule cross bar to the factory rack. It's tight, but it absolutely fits.
I wanted to use my Thule bike carriers and that's why I put on the rack. If you are going to do this you should know a few things. First, since the factory rack is mounted farther back on the car this means your bike rack is way back on the car. In fact the bike rack is so far back it will hit the tailgate when it opens to 100%. I learned this the hard way (scratch). The first thing I tried was adjusting the tailgate to a custom level. It works but the height is pretty low and you have to bend down to access the back. This is what it looks like:
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When you put a bike in the rack you can see the rack tray is longer then it needs to be
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So I figured I would cut the bike rack to make it shorter and this is the result:
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I still had the tweak the tailgate to a custom height to clear the bike tire. It is about 95% up in the above picture. You can see a close up of the clearance here. I should also note that without the bike on the rack you can go 100% up on the tailgate and still have clearance.
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In this picture you can see the tailgate at 100% and how much it touches the tire (not much):
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A couple of notes:
1. If you have road and mountain bikes do the measuring with the mountain bike because they have a slightly longer wheel base.
2. I used a saws-all to cut the rack, but a hacksaw will also work. It's soft aluminum. I cut off 6 inches of rack.
3. This is for a fork mounted system. A system that hold the whole bike with both wheels may be more adjustable in how it sits on the rack and being able to slide it forward, thus avoid cutting. I already owned the fork mounts trays and didn't want to spend $300 on 2 news trays:
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I wanted to use my Thule bike carriers and that's why I put on the rack. If you are going to do this you should know a few things. First, since the factory rack is mounted farther back on the car this means your bike rack is way back on the car. In fact the bike rack is so far back it will hit the tailgate when it opens to 100%. I learned this the hard way (scratch). The first thing I tried was adjusting the tailgate to a custom level. It works but the height is pretty low and you have to bend down to access the back. This is what it looks like:
When you put a bike in the rack you can see the rack tray is longer then it needs to be
So I figured I would cut the bike rack to make it shorter and this is the result:
I still had the tweak the tailgate to a custom height to clear the bike tire. It is about 95% up in the above picture. You can see a close up of the clearance here. I should also note that without the bike on the rack you can go 100% up on the tailgate and still have clearance.
In this picture you can see the tailgate at 100% and how much it touches the tire (not much):
A couple of notes:
1. If you have road and mountain bikes do the measuring with the mountain bike because they have a slightly longer wheel base.
2. I used a saws-all to cut the rack, but a hacksaw will also work. It's soft aluminum. I cut off 6 inches of rack.
3. This is for a fork mounted system. A system that hold the whole bike with both wheels may be more adjustable in how it sits on the rack and being able to slide it forward, thus avoid cutting. I already owned the fork mounts trays and didn't want to spend $300 on 2 news trays:
