I've got a thule rack on my westy that is attached to the fiberglass so
that it can open and close with the rack still on.  It holds two kayaks
( I generally have two light touring/recreation boats on there) and two
bikes at max capacity. (the bike racks are mounted on the VERY outside
of the racks.

I have seen MANY of these kind of systems in the rockies, but not really
much elsewhere.

I didn't mount it, but it was a major bonus for me when I bought this
van since I kayak a lot. I was concerned about the wind and any
potential damage to the fiberglass as well and inspected it lengthily.
There is no sign of cracking and I have noticed no damage to the
fiberglass at all.  The other concern that I had was the ability of the
locking machanism to hold the whole thing down, but that hasn't proved
to be a problem either.

Have made some lengthy trips with these on...all the way from this SE
corner of Ohio (think West Virginia) to Glacier National Park to
Portland to San Francisco and then the frequent trips up to Lakes
Michigan, Erie and Superior.  No problems.

I had read many warning about not doing this sort of thing (think it was
the westfalia.org site) after I had already been driving it around for a
while, but all of these warnings were hypothetical, they didn't start
with, "You'd never believe what happened to me..."

86 Westy
73 Thing
99 Subaru Forester

Greg Kessler
Kessler@ohio.edu
http://gregling.net