Not quite sure about the artic silver but Thule's silver colored boxes match Titan Silver almost spot on.

I'm certain that if I were to shove the box to one side I could get one or more bike racks on it.

As far as airflow and all that-it does protrude over the windshield in order to open the rear hatch. I find that the noise goes down with the box on vs just having the xbars on. On paper there is probably an ideal placement for the box front to back-but in reality your really not going to notice any significant drop in mpg. Your sticking a box on top of a box. Couple that with the fact that you have probably loaded everything pretty much to the max, who cares where those few tenths of a gallon went?

:rofl:

If we cared 4.8is would probably not have been the correct choice.

Thanks for the tips.

Nice set up's! Looks as though I have the smallest box here, I thought it may be what I need but I can always use more room on road trips! Anyways picked up the bars and BMW box 320 used, works wonders and silver matches quite well. Box has a small bmw written on each side and is i believe made by thule and can also be adapted to fit other cross bars with a kit. Seems very good quality and with the sunroof interior cloth open it was a bit noisey but with it all closed up you cant even notice it there.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i1...s/da2852c7.jpg

That's the size I want! wit this I think I can fit two bikes next to it. The Brand is BMW?

Also I just installed some crossbars and I get some whistling going on? Any ideas how to prevent that? I think I need to tape the underside of the bars that have an open grove? does that make sense?

Where did you find the cross bars for $175? I can't find them under $229

I think the price went up a few months ago. They used to be easily found from BMW dealers online for $175 but as you have seen, they are all up to $229 or thereabouts. I can only attribute that to BMW increasing the price to dealers. :dunno: (This happened with the 4.6is body kit in dramatic fashion.)

I was lucky enough to find a set of the newer cross bars BNIB from a forum member for a reasonable price. I would suggest keeping an eye open here and elsewhere. They do pop up occasionally, especially when the owner has sold his/her X5. Do be aware that there are two versions and in my opinion, the older ones are ugly.

I found these on eBay for really cheap and they ARE made at Thule Factory as I have since inserted the bike carrier without any issues.

BMW X5 / X3 ROOF RACK CROSS BARS LOAD BARS T RACK LOCK - eBay (item 270664285357 end time Mar-14-11 19:07:05 PDT)

They are awesome.

I will post some pics later

I have seen those and wondered whether they were high quality. The price is certainly good but that was a bit worrisome for me. Is there anything on them or with the packaging that lead you to believe they are made by Thule?

Actually, yes all the Thule Rapid Aero (Which these are) accessories are direct fit for these. I have two Echelon Bike trays and that fit perfectly! They even have the spot on the foot where the Thule "deal" is supposed to be applied. The lock mechanism and everything is 100% the same. It's nothing new really, Chinese factories sell non-branded items on the eBay Market all the time, this particular eBay vendor has sold over 10,000 pairs so far and when you order a 40' container worth of them, you get a price ;-) . They feel rock solid after several months of use. I have some pictures but they are full res. I need to resize them. PM me and I can send them to you.

Thanks for the info. I understand how things can be sold out of the front of the factory or the back. ;) I just wanted some verification from someone who has bought them. I have a set of OEM BMW bars coming from a private party purchase but I'd still like to see some pics. I think that would help out some of our other members here too.