A while back I bought a top of the line Yakima trunk mount rack and I just really DO NOT like this thing. I'm sure it's not a bad design by Yakima, but just the general design of all trunk mount racks. The first time I used it, the flat nylon straps BUZZED(from the wind) so bad going down the road that it seemed like it vibrated the entire car. I wrapped a couple pieces of black tape around the straps to streamline them and that stopped the buzzing. This last weekend I had to haul our bikes about 50 miles so I put the carrier on. I decided to loop the side straps back over the top tube of the rack to help stabalize it a little better. This made the straps criss-cross in the center. When we were driving I noticed that the now crossed straps were BUZZING like the side straps had before. I didn't have anything to put on them so I drove on. Well when we got home I looked at the rack and the stupid straps were both cut more than halfway thru!!!
The buzzing and rubbing against each other actually cut thru the heavy nylon. So now I'm stuck with a $150 rack with bad straps.
I guess I'm gonna cut off about 6" from the end of the forward straps that's not being used and try to sew it across the bad spots. Not sure whether I'll ever be able to really trust this stupid thing again! There's gotta be a better way.