etrailer | Yakima Hitch Bike Racks Review – 2021 Mercedes-Benz Sprinter 3500

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What’s up everybody it’s aj with etrailer.com today we’ll be checking out the yakima swing away exo system on our 2021 mercedes-benz sprinter 3500. now right away it is an xo system so that means you can use this in a bunch of different combinations so if you don’t want the basket and the bike rack you can do two baskets there’s a box that goes with it there’s

Ski and snowboard carries that you can actually mismatch in there so it’s a complete system that you have to work with on the back of your spinner so it’s going to be handy you don’t have to haul anything on the inside it saves all that room so you can carry everything out here we have the setup where is a two-tier system up top we got the platform style bike

Rack they can hold two bikes to be able to hold 40 pounds per bike so keep that in mind with what bikes you want to throw up there it holds it by the wheel and not the frame so that’s really nice and opens up to hold a bunch of different style bikes that’s why you don’t worry about the frame being damaged at all on the bottom level we’ve got the cargo carrier

Set up and it has a weight capacity of 110 pounds so also think about what kind of gear you want to store in here don’t exceed that one of the major features to the exo system is it can actually swing away with that base so you can get access to the back of your van without having to unload everything that you already have loaded up so how you do that is you come

Back here it’s going to be a big hand knob use that to loosen it you know when it falls down like that you know it’s done it’s loosened enough now it doesn’t come completely out so you have to worry about it detaching and you’re losing or leaving somewhere we’ll pull on this hand knob and then you can push out and swing it away now at a certain point it’s gonna

Snap and you’ll see this go into place let you know it’s locked in so i’ll try and stay out of your way and push it all the way out here and now it’s locked into place so then let’s open up the back door we’ll see if it’s going to clear this you want to be careful that looks like it’s just fine there now we can’t completely open the door but we can get it pretty

Far open to about here so it’s going to be really helpful to not unload everything and be able to get to the back of the van you can also swing away the top portion so we’re going to do here there’s a lock in place i’ll remove that now go around to the back side got another hand knob just twist to remove that pin and then we have a hand knob down here with all

Those removed you can twist the top independently up and out of the way to get full access to the cargo carrier so if i want to remove this box i can lift it up and out of the way without having to move the bike rack or the bike now let’s get some measurements while it’s out in this position you can see how close the tire is to the back of the van so let’s get a

Measurement looks like it’s one and a half inches away so there is a little bit of space but not a whole lot and that’s also going to depend on what kind of bike you put on here this is a mountain bike so it might be a little bit more aggressive than a road bike tire that’s going to be a little smaller ideally it would have been far easier to remove the bike with

This completely swung out and that top portion spun around too that would be facing me and away from the vehicle but just to give you an idea if you want to remove your bike quickly and you just want to do it in this position i’ll show you how that’s done too so come back to the back strap first undo that just push on the lever push the strap up loosen it and

Get it out of the way we’ll come over here to the wheel hook and keep one hand on the bike to keep it in place lift up on the hook and remove that and then i’ll just walk over towards the bike get a goal good hold on it lift it up and out of the way one of the nice things about the exo system is that how easy it is to swap out the accessories when you do want to

Swap them out so let’s say we don’t need the bike rack anymore i want to put something else up top just come down here to the hand knobs with them unlocked they are lockable each one of them can have a lock or can be locked we’ll back this up you’ll see this red block slide out a little bit but to let you know that side is loose we’re gonna do the same thing on

The other side and i can lift this up and get out of the way i like that there’s no tools involved for this so you don’t have to get out the screwdriver or anything like that or the toolbox you just back this up and slides up and out and you can remove it it’s easy just to drop in the other accessories now these face this way instead of side to side but same

Premise drop them in turn the knobs and tighten them up now closer look at how the knobs work there is a button you push on the side see this one lets you know that you can tighten or loosen it when you push this in and pops out on the other side has an x which means it can’t be turned or it can’t be tightened or loosened glock cores also go by the same key system

So what that’s nice is they can all lock with one key so every one of these hand knobs you can use the same keyboard and even the lock on the hitch too now let’s go and get some measurements go from the bumper the furthest out point here at the end of the hand knobs about 34 and a half inches so it’s going to add quite a bit but the nice thing is if you’re only

Going to be using the top let’s say you got rid of the cargo carrier and you kept the bike rack up here for whatever reason you can pull the hand knobs on the side and fold the arms away like that and that’s gonna be less space down here now you still have this up here but this whole portion can be removed as well and got getting out of the way that way looking

Down here at the hitch it’s a two inch by two inch hitch with an anti-rattle bolt and a lock on the other side again that’s key to like to the knobs let me see i can shake it back and forth shake the whole van there’s not any rattling or anything in the exo system another accessory you can get is using these four pull adapters you can actually extend your license

Plate out towards the front so if it’s covered up by all the cargo you’re carrying you can extend it out here with the extra kit on our website that brings the lights and the license plate out here overall the xo system is really nice with this van i think it really complements it just being able to swing away get complete access to the back van if you’re loaded

Up not to mention all the different accessories you can mix and match so if you’re already somebody that’s doing all that stuff anyway you have the same mount for it and just get the different accessories you saw how easy it was to pop those out and replace them i really like that since you’re probably not going to be climbing up on your roof and throw up anything

There and you don’t want to take up any more space up on the inside you can keep some of your cargo out here and out of the way i think that does it thanks for hanging out i hope this helped you

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etrailer | Yakima Hitch Bike Racks Review – 2021 Mercedes-Benz Sprinter 3500 By etrailer.com