The LFD Off Road Thread
- Thread starter jafrush
- Start date
Finally, I get to post in here with something substantial!
UPS dropped 3 large boxes off last night and this morning I installed my LFD Full Length rack. I guess I'll throw up a quick "review" of it.
Timeline: From the first email asking questions, to ordering, shipping, etc was about 6 weeks
Shipping: Three boxes, one super long box (side rails) and two moderately large boxes (hardware, crossbars, front fairing). It was humorous watching the UPS guy deliver it all via my Ring doorbell camera.
Quality: Everything fit together very well. No unusual edges or anything like that. The powder coat had a few issues, which I relayed to LFD already; but honestly, nothing more than what it's going to get from the wonderful low hanging branches on every trail around here. A little touch up paint will solve all of this.
Install: I did the install solo in a garage with the assistance of a step ladder (and my sliders) in a few hours. Including a few stops, lunch, handling some emails, etc I think laying out the parts to taking the final picture was about 4 hours. With another pair of hands and another ladder (one person working each side), I'm fairly certain this could be done in under an hour. The instructions are fairly straight forward (although my box had what appeared to be 7/8 rack instructions), and the fact that they include plenty of extra hardware is a HUGE bonus. Doing it solo I bolted one of the side rails in place, then the next and then started with front fairing/cross-bar, then the rear most cross-bar (which had to sit in front of the shark fin), and then worked loosely installing cross bars from back to front; then tightened the cross bars and rack to truck. OH! The front feet were loosely installed with the side rails, and their final tightening was the last step I did.
Final Thoughts: This thing is solid. Really. No wiggle. No jiggle. I really do like the look. Black hardware would have been preferred, but I read LFD's response either in this thread (or the 7/8 rack thread) about why this hardware comes with it. Maybe I'll just get busy with touchup paint when it warms up. I have driven about 35 miles with it (30 of which were highway). To say that today is a bad day to judge wind noise would be an understatement, currently we are having ~20mph sustained winds with 40mph gusts, so anything over ~50mph you hear the wind bustling around on the roof... The few times I feel like the wind died down on my drive, the added wind noise from the rack is noticeable, but not intrusive. As ridiculous as it sounds, it almost feels more stable in heavy cross winds. Maybe if the fairing came down closer to the body it would be quieter? I'll make another post in this thread after a few more days of driving to see if less-windy days change the wind noise. All in all, I'm quite pleased with the purchase; from looks, to assembly, to price point, the LFD Full length checked all of my boxes.
UPS dropped 3 large boxes off last night and this morning I installed my LFD Full Length rack. I guess I'll throw up a quick "review" of it.
Timeline: From the first email asking questions, to ordering, shipping, etc was about 6 weeks
Shipping: Three boxes, one super long box (side rails) and two moderately large boxes (hardware, crossbars, front fairing). It was humorous watching the UPS guy deliver it all via my Ring doorbell camera.
Quality: Everything fit together very well. No unusual edges or anything like that. The powder coat had a few issues, which I relayed to LFD already; but honestly, nothing more than what it's going to get from the wonderful low hanging branches on every trail around here. A little touch up paint will solve all of this.
Install: I did the install solo in a garage with the assistance of a step ladder (and my sliders) in a few hours. Including a few stops, lunch, handling some emails, etc I think laying out the parts to taking the final picture was about 4 hours. With another pair of hands and another ladder (one person working each side), I'm fairly certain this could be done in under an hour. The instructions are fairly straight forward (although my box had what appeared to be 7/8 rack instructions), and the fact that they include plenty of extra hardware is a HUGE bonus. Doing it solo I bolted one of the side rails in place, then the next and then started with front fairing/cross-bar, then the rear most cross-bar (which had to sit in front of the shark fin), and then worked loosely installing cross bars from back to front; then tightened the cross bars and rack to truck. OH! The front feet were loosely installed with the side rails, and their final tightening was the last step I did.
Final Thoughts: This thing is solid. Really. No wiggle. No jiggle. I really do like the look. Black hardware would have been preferred, but I read LFD's response either in this thread (or the 7/8 rack thread) about why this hardware comes with it. Maybe I'll just get busy with touchup paint when it warms up. I have driven about 35 miles with it (30 of which were highway). To say that today is a bad day to judge wind noise would be an understatement, currently we are having ~20mph sustained winds with 40mph gusts, so anything over ~50mph you hear the wind bustling around on the roof... The few times I feel like the wind died down on my drive, the added wind noise from the rack is noticeable, but not intrusive. As ridiculous as it sounds, it almost feels more stable in heavy cross winds. Maybe if the fairing came down closer to the body it would be quieter? I'll make another post in this thread after a few more days of driving to see if less-windy days change the wind noise. All in all, I'm quite pleased with the purchase; from looks, to assembly, to price point, the LFD Full length checked all of my boxes.
Attachments
p4.runner
New member
Nice write up. I've had mine just under a month and love the look and build quality. Now time to get it loaded up.
YellowSnow
Banned
And confirm, the 7/8 is a complete “no drill” rack installation? Once again, like the no KDSS on their skid plate missing on the LFD site, they don’t mention drill/no drill under the rack description. Having a no drill rack option is a huge selling point for people....not sure why you would leave this out.
Not sure if this has been asked and something I'd be interested in..Any plans in the future as an option to get a 3/4 or 7/8 Rack as the same width of the Full Rack since you already make the longer cross bars?Three to seven weeks is pretty accurate right now. The big variable has been powder coating turn around, they're taking anywhere from one to five weeks. We're actively working on securing a new powder coating vendor at the moment to improve turn around.
We did get a ton back from powder coating this morning, all orders through roughly the end of December should be shipping out this week.
Busy day at the laser as well, ran about 250 more crossbars today.
I just saw you discounted the 3/4.
3/4, 7/8, and full length are all no-drill :dancin:
jafrush
New member
We have not been asked that one yet, and I hadn't thought about it before. Honestly that'd be a pretty easy conversion, I don't see why we couldn't offer that option.
The 3/4 is really just temporarily discontinued; it was too close in length to the 7/8 and didn't make a lot of sense. We do plan to adjust the length to make it a proper 3/4 length that doesn't block the sunroof and release again later in the year.
garface
New member
I'm curious about the height comparison between the stock roof rails w/ LFD crossbars and the LFD side rails with crossbars. Anyone know if they are much different? From looking at the sharkfin antenna in photos, looks like the LFD side rails are a little bit higher than my current setup with their crossbars. I see there are still some 3/4 rails in stock and I'm looking to add a little bit extra length over the stock rails so I can add a couple more bars, but where my girlfriend lives there are a ton of parking garages and my options are slim already.... taking her Mazda 2 out on date night feels.... small.
An LFD rack sits 1 1/8" higher than the tip of the sharkfin.
Here are some details about mine if it helps at all.
Last edited:
YellowSnow
Banned
Is this with the wind deflector?
The full length rack's front crossbar has an integrated fairing/wind deflector; so yes.
YellowSnow
Banned
Is that different than the attachment deflector you can purchase from LFD separate?
jafrush
New member
Yeah, complete racks come with a special wind deflector crossbar. We've also been including one when people add on the side rails, just because we like how they look.
The one that we just finalized to work with the stock roof rails and crossbars bolts onto an existing crossbar, and is just much skinnier due to the height difference between the two setups.
57HotrodVW
New member
Got any pics you can share?
