Black strips on roof

[JPolliard]

Hello everyone. So I am looking for roof racks for my 2013 C-MAX. I think I've decided on the Thule aeroblades. However I just realized there are 2 black strips running down the roof of the car. What are these for? Could racks be screwed into them instead of mounted to the doors?

[Smiling Jack]

Hello everyone. So I am looking for roof racks for my 2013 C-MAX. I think I've decided on the Thule aeroblades. However I just realized there are 2 black strips running down the roof of the car. What are these for? Could racks be screwed into them instead of mounted to the doors?

 

As I recall, the 2014 Escape has roof rails mounted to them, and the Escape body is essentially the same as the C-max (although the Escape roof line takes a little different slope in the rear).  I wondred whether the Escape roof rails could simply be mounted on the C-max.

 

Has anyone investigated this?

Edited July 5, 2014 by Smiling Jack

[timwil56]

I haven't looked, but I wonder if the black plastic strips cover up the seam dividing the roof panel to the side panels. There is a thread on the www.fordescape.org forum covering the removal of the plastic strips and roof rails. If I recall, there's a video attached to one of the posts demonstrating the procedure.

I found it, here you go. They're working on a Ford Kuga, but I believe global design makes it the same across all models.

Edited July 5, 2014 by timwil56

[Bruce Z]

The black strips on my C-max have two "doors" for lack of a better term on each strip, that can flip open and under is a threaded screw hole. I would guess it is to attach a roof rack system to it.

 

Cheers,

 

Bruce

[mtb9153]

No offense to anyone who has done this or is considering it.  But I still struggle with why anyone would want to alter the smooth lines that Ford put into the CMax by putting a luggage or cargo racks on the roof.  I'm staying with the stock lines. :thumbsup:

Edited July 6, 2014 by mtb9153

[timwil56]

No offense to anyone who has done this or is considering it.  But I still struggle with why anyone would want to alter the smooth lines that Ford put into the CMax by putting a luggage or cargo racks on the roof.  I'm staying with the stock lines. :thumbsup:

I agree. These days, factory roof rails and racks are for appearance and not functionality. I can see adding a removable rack to occassionally transport bikes, surf boards or plywood home from the lumber yard, but every little disturbance of air flow is going to affect fuel econony, even if it's just a fraction. Ford designed this car without roof rails for a reason. On that Escape forum, before they became an option, most folks removed the cross bars and many wanted to remove the rails as well in an attempt to improve fuel economy.

Edited July 6, 2014 by timwil56

[Smiling Jack]

The black strips on my C-max have two "doors" for lack of a better term on each strip, that can flip open and under is a threaded screw hole. I would guess it is to attach a roof rack system to it.

 

Cheers,

 

Bruce

 

Interesting, thanks.

 

But I have no such "doors" on my 2013 Energi.

Edited July 6, 2014 by Smiling Jack

[ptjones]

I have a bike rack on the back of my car and their are others with hitches too. Not as much of a earo drag. :)

 

Paul

[MichaelM]

The two black rails do indeed cover the 'ditch' seam between the roof panel and the bodyside assembly. There is no solid attatchment point under them.

[chrisl]

Interesting, thanks.

 

But I have no such "doors" on my 2013 Energi.

 

I suspect it's only on Euro models.  I don't have them on my 2013 Hybrid, and when I was looking into rack installation found a drawing of the strip installation that doesn't show any mount points underneath. 

 

There's a web page out there that shows someone pulling gutter liners off a Ford Flex and using the threaded holes that are used to hold the internal gutter liner clips down.  The inserts/liners on the flex press down over clips.  As far as I can tell on the CMax, they're glued in.   There are certainly no threaded holes from the gutters down into the ceiling space (I've had the headliner down).

[chrisl]

No offense to anyone who has done this or is considering it.  But I still struggle with why anyone would want to alter the smooth lines that Ford put into the CMax by putting a luggage or cargo racks on the roof.  I'm staying with the stock lines. :thumbsup:

 

Because different people use cars for different things. 

 

I use mine for moving stuff around, where "stuff" generally includes bikes, and quite frequently. "Trunk" racks are right out due to geometry of some of the bikes, and carbon top tubes of others.  Hitch racks usually get in the way of the hatch (though some do swing away), expose your bikes to getting bashed from behind or backed into something, and accumulate a *lot* more dirt on the bikes, to the extent that it can foul chains pretty badly.  There also aren't many hitch racks that don't want to grab onto a tube, which is a no-no for some of the bikes.  I have to admit that I'm occasionally tempted to install a hitch and get a hitch rack for those days when 5 bike capacity just isn't enough...

 

Using the car to commute is for me a temporary thing-- my normal commute is by bicycle, and the car gets used when I want to start a ride more than ~20 miles from my door, haul groceries, or go on a road trip (usually with bikes, sometimes more than one per person).  I haven't done it yet with the CMax, but there have been times when I've driven around with much more than the new price of the car on the rack.