bmw support system (roof rack)

Does anyone have the instructions for the BMW roof rack for the E70. I cant seem to find mine and the two bars are different? One has plastic pieces underneath the bar while the other is smooth? Not sure which is the front and which is the rear. I looked them all over and dont see any labels etc.. Thanks for any help!

Hi,

I have a X3 2012, however, from what I saw in the parts dept, the front bar has the 3 small plastic stick-ons. These are designated as air guides. If we're talking about the same little items, mine remind me of those little plastic security things one finds inside all sorts of retail packaging.

The explaination from my dealer was not helpful, as they had no idea what the things actually do, but my pamphlet here designates them as the air guides and says they go on the front. There was a display at my dealer that had X3, M3, and 5 series roof rack rails and as I recall, they all had one rail with the air guides.

Although this response is a bit memory-based, I hope this helps.

best

Luna-01

That's perfect. I did install them in that fashion and when I looked at them I thought maybe those air deflectors were suppose to be at the back. Thanks for confirming that that bar goes on the front!

Yep, the rail with the "tabs" go in the front. Those tabs help reduce turbulent wind noise at speed.

I'm pleased that helped.

The rails themselves work just great, but add a Yakima Load Warrior roof rack/basket and you'd swear your in a hurricane. The buffeting and wind noise are incredible and observing over 220 miles, the mpg is down by 4 mpg........

One thing I noticed and posted in another X3 F25 thread is that, fo the F25 X3 anyway, the roof rail assembly seems quite tall. The bottom of my roof rack is 5.5" off the roof, allowing all sorts of wind issues. I had hoped to have the roof rack tucked down more toward the roof, thus it would be somewhat more streamlined.

Any experience out there?

best

Luna-01