Review of Saris B.A.T. 2-Bike Spare Tire Rack

Saris B.A.T. 2-Bike Spare Tire Rack
By: Saris Average Rating: 3.0 Total Reviews: 1
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Works well if you can get it on your car

On: 2007-07-16

Purchasing a bike rack for a 2007 Toyota Rav4 is a big pain in the a**.

The rear door for the 2007 (and I believe 2006, both of which saw a significant redesign to previous models) swings to the side rather than up. The spare tire is attached to the rear door, and theres a metal bracket that the tire bolts onto.

I originally purchased the Yakima Spare Joe and it didnt really fit on the Rav4 due to the bracket in the back blocking the strap that is supposed to run vertically behind the tire.

I returned that one and purchased this one instead. Its a pretty good price but requires that you also purchase one of two special metal pieces that goes behind the tire and eventually gives you something to bolt the BAT to. See: Saris BAT Spare Tire Rack Mounting Plate B - 996B. For a simple hunk of metal and a bolt, $50 is pretty ridiculously expensive, making the entire product much more expensive than it initially appears.

Once you get everything you have to attach it to your car. The plate the company recommends doesnt fit the Rav4 at all, as the spare tire mount (the Toyota bracket) has a metal lip that is in the way of the BAT bracket.

Your only options at this point are to return everything or bust out your handy metal grinder and grind off the entire metal lip on the spare tire mount. Which is what we did and at that point I was able to attach everything and it worked fine after that.

An additional annoyance is that to actually get to your spare tire in case of a flat, you need to remove the BAT, which is to be expected, but for some reason they didnt bother to make the final mounting bolt a size larger than can be removed by standard lug wrenches, so you have to carry an additional wrench around to removed the bolt.

It would have been handy if the customer rep that I spoke to on the phone from Saris had warned me ahead of time that this didnt fit my Rav4.

Anyway, now that everything is on it does seem to work fine.