John Simcox

Thule, amongst others make roof bars for the A6

KevinGary

Just open any of the doors and look up at the top center of the door jamb and you will see the holes. You don't have to move the weather stripping. I have the Thule rack system. It is very light and easy. I also have the Thule hitch rack for 4 bikes that I used for 15 years on the back of minivans and SUVs as the kids were growing up. Now that they are in college, the hitch rack has been retired to the garage. The hitch rack system is much heavier than the roof rack.

Acuransx

LeftFrank -- love this thread. One of reasons I went with the A6 was trunk size sufficient to easily accommodate my beloved Pinarello Opera circa 2004 (one of the best riding steel bikes every made IMHO). I take it you are carrying more than one bicycle hence the need for the rack. The Pinarello lives in the trunk since I'm not willing to risk theft/exposure to the elements and the few times I used a trunk mounted rack on my Acura TL it cut my highway gas mileage by 5 mpg. Agree with the other posts re: roof rack -- much better than trunk/trailer hitch IMHO. Best of luck.


Jeff

Jeff_B

There are aftermarket bolt on hitches out there. Besides the license plate and taillamp view obsruction, You may want to see how it effects the camera and back up sensors. Im pretty sure when they add hitches to the Q5 and Q7, they do sofware updates so the car know theres a hitch. Im not 100% sure on that but it may be worth finding out before putting it on..

zooma230

Your clearance when entering and exiting driveways may be reduced. My partner's father installed a hitch on his Passat and it scrapes going in/our of the driveway at home and in many businesses.

John Simcox

With the inbuilt Audi wiring, with a lighting board plugged in the car knows a trailer is attached and disables the rear parking sensors

LeftFrank

Thanks for all your responses. It does seem like a roof rack is the best option for all the reasons mentioned here.

However, as an older person, and with bikes that aren't extremely light, I really cannot lift bikes up to a roof rack, so I have to eliminate that as an option.

A hitch rack itself will go on the car only when I am transporting bikes, but the hitch itself will be permanently bolted to the car (or until I return it the lease). So I'd like to re-ask this question:

Will the app. 42 pounds of weight that the hitch will add to the back of the car adversely affect either handling or fuel mileage? If the answer is yes, I might just stick with the trunk rack and put soft fabric under each contact point.

ColoradoMark

I do not think you would notice the weight. As had a hitch on my Porsche 993 for my tire trailer. I never noticed its weights.
To test this put a forty pound weight in your trunk and see if you notice it.