Customer Reviews

Outback 4-Bike Hitch Mount Rack

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Based on everyones comments I was concerned about this rack, but I didn't want to spend the $... that the bike shop wanted me too. So I got this one to try out. True its not as solid as some of the more expensive ones. But we tossed 2 adult bikes and 2 kids bikes onto it and went camping and it worked great.

Bad:
1. With one bike it wobles a lot. It should come with a couple of shims.
2. It doesn't come with the bolt and pin to attach it to your hitch. (That was lame.)

Good:
1. With 4 bikes it is very stable and doesn't wobble very much.
2. It has the tilt function and with 4 bikes it worked great.
3. The brackets that hold each of the straps rotate so can attach the straps to different styles of bikes.

Summary:
For $... this was a good value, I would buy it again. I was happy with the results and satisfied with its performance.

It works as advertised. Not a lot to say about a bike rack. I have hardly any wobble from mine, and I suspect those that do didn't assemble theirs correctly or aren't tightening the hitch pin bolt down far enough. My only complaint is the weight--it uses a really heavy steel tube for the vertical portion of the rack, which I don't quite understand. The vertical tube has the lowest load, with the highest load being on the hitch draw tube. But it's not that big a deal. It just increases the weight on the rear of the car needlessly.

...I agree with other comments about the wobble and cheap fasteners...Mt two big gripes - (1) One of the mounts is behind the post which does not allow safe clearance to the tailgate of my vehicle. (2) The bike mounting system would not let me mount a 22" girls frame securely.

After reading some of the other reviews, I was apprehensive about purchasing this bike rack. However, others that I had priced were two to three times as expensive, so I decided to give it a try. IT WORKED GREAT! We used it for a vacation trip of about 1,000 miles and never had the first problem with it. In fact, it's still on my SUV so it's even easier to strap the bikes on and go! The first time we put the rack on, it seemed unstable, but learned this was the way it's supposed to be. It rocks a little, but accepted the fact it wasn't going anywhere as long as we put it together properly. We did, however, bungee cord all of the bikes together for added safety and additional peace of mind. I would highly recommend this bike rack.

I gave this product one star because it was the lowest option. What I really give it is this: WARNING! The outback hitchback 4 product is a dangerous piece of junk. I installed it on my Suburban (which required the - needs to be redesigned - adaptor to 2 inch) and put one full-sized and three kid bikes on it. It swayed a range of 10-12 inches newly installed. My wife had went on the Target web site earlier and read that the sway was normal. By the time I had traveled 1/3 of the way back to the Bay Area from LakeTahoe (in the middle of the night) I noticed in the lights of the car behind me the hub of the full sized bike wheel sticking out from the side of the vehicle. I pulled over in the dark and checked it out. Due to the constant side-to-side motion of the winding mountain roads the main metal braket had bent and the sway had increased to a now dangerous 2 feet! Needless to say the rest of the four hour trip was nerve racking. Roping the rack to try and stabilize it. I'm taking the rack back to Target!

I got this rack from my local Dick's sporting goods store. This was the cheapest hitch rack I could find. As some other reviewers noticed it wobbles a lot but this proved not to affect the rack's performance. I was able to attach all different kinds of bikes as well as my XC skies and ski poles.

Everything was great until I went skiing in extreme cold. When I came back the straps were breaking off. I do not know if this was caused by cold or if some kid had fun with my rack. So now, out of 8 straps only 5 are functional which means I can put only two bikes on. This is the only problem I had with this rack, besides that I would efienetely recommend it. Do not spend money on brand or hype, get what's cheap and works.

We also bought this bike rack because of the price and it will hold 4 bikes. It could be improved on the Hitch end but it was not bad. It does tend to loosen at highway speeds but we use it with the larger attachment for class 3 hitches. It kept our bikes from damaging our Suburban. We use it for adult bikes and also several smaller BMX bikes. It is more challenging to get the BMXs on. One trick is to make sure you swing the arm down to mount the one inside bike, then tilt it back up for the other three. Also use a wrench and tighten the hitch bolt very tight with the lock washer or it will loosen on the highway. We also bought a big Schwin cable lock to run through the bike frames for security while parked.

Ok, like most people, I got this thing because its cheap. And boy do I mean cheap.

The 'strap' mechanism is four little dots that fit into 4 little holes in the straps. Yes, thats right, its the same theory as legos. There's no double tie down, there's no snappy thing, there's no bidirectional interlock mechanism, there's no nylon cloth hitch like on a bike helmet. Just 8 little plastic nubs between your bike, a big bump, and the traffic behind you getting a face full of steel tubing, gears, and spokes.

If you really want to use this, I would suggest getting some rope and learning to tie a few knots. Otherwise I never really felt 'safe' just using the lego clicky connection.

I have owned this Graber bike rack for about 5 years now. My wife picked one up from our local Target store for my birthday one year. In the 5 years it has traveled thousands of miles between the states of Wis., MN, and ND with not so much as a hiccup. I have carried 4 bikes on it, including 2 adult and 2 kids bikes.

One of the kids bikes is oddly shaped yet still fits fine (20"). One of the kids bikes is an 16" and works as well. It is a bit of a stretch to get any bike on the spot between the rack and the vehicle. I usually put the smallest bike back there.

I have had vehicles with both a 1 1/4" receiver and a 2" receiver. If you use the included threaded pin with the tightening shim, there is next to no wobble with either configuration, even with the plastic 2" adapter. The shim goes inside the square pipe of the bike rack. Then when you insert the pin with the threads near the head, through the receiver and the bike rack tube and the shim bolt, and ratchet it down tight, everything becomes nice and snug. I have to wonder if other reviewers correctly used the shim or if they are using the shim at all.

I also like the fact that this rack folds down and allows you to get into the back of your vehicle. A lot of racks in this price range do not have that feature. You can also easily fold down the horizontal bars that hold the bikes for more compact storage in your garage. The straps also work fine, although the little nubs that hold the straps do tend to mis-shape a little bit. However, I have never had one unstrap by itself in the 5 years I've had it.

Yes you can get fancier, more refined bike racks from Thule or Yakima and others, but you will also pay an arm and a leg. I agree with one reviewer that the large tube construction seems like over-kill and adds a lot of weight, but this Graber is also SOLID and yet won't break your budget. This Graber has given me no reason to look elsewhere for another rack, nor consider upgrading. I have been happy with it.

I have now owned one of these for 5 years, is a decnet product. It can sway as some have mentioned, that is a use for bungie cords!<br /> I have used this product, fully loaded, traveling 500+ miles each way several times, and thru the mountains, with no real problems. The retainers are now showing some age and cracking, so I am looking for replacements to contine using the product.