Rack issue
 

A couple years ago my wife bought a Saris Guardian 2 rack to carry bikes on her Suzuki Aerio. Nice rack, easy to use. Here's the bad part, the protective foam has stained the trunk lid. Two rectangular yellow stains on the factory pearl white paint. My detail guy couldn't get them out

I called Saris and the rep said she'd like to see some pictures and gave me her e-mail address. I took photos and fired them off this morning. We'll see what happens.

I hope they have a solution to this. Has this happened to anyone else here?

Never heard of a rack staining a car. Oftentimes , on a trunk car rack, the rack might leave an indentation in the trunk of the car. Very odd that it caused a stain.

I received an e mail from Saris with a new contact person, Curt. Curt said they have been using the same foam for 20 years and have never seen this. He told me to take the car to an auto body shop to see what it will take to remove the stains. He asked me to cut the protective foam off of the Guardian II and mail it to them for testing. They sent me an upgrade rack, from GuardianII to a Bones 3. This was fed-exed to me within two days of speaking to him. So far their customer service is above and beyond anything I would have expected.

Very cool.

WOW they seem to really bending over backwards to help you.

Might not be the foam...in fact, I'm inclined to think it isn't. Saris has probably sold hundreds of thousands of those things, and I've never heard of a staining problem. We had similar staining (actually mild pitting, just in the clearcoat) from a Rhode Gear rack years ago, and we finally determined it was from tree sap. I left the rack on most of the summer, and over the months the tree dripped on the trunk lid. It apparently collected around the pads and ate up the paint. If Saris isn't seeing this on lots of other cars, I'd say they've done as much as they should.
But they could be lying. Maybe it happens to everybody...