Saw a matte white Model 3 at San Diego Service Center - note on the possible 'roof rack points'

[derekmw]

I was dropping my car off for service and of course, it was the one time I left my cell phone at home so I couldn't take pictures. VIN was 086.

Service advisor told me it was a customer's car but must be employee or relative of employee due to the low VIN?

In either case, I was excited to see one up close for the first time.

I DID want to mention one thing around the possible points for roof racks that have been talked about. I didn't peel up the rubber seal of course, but just looking at the points where the arrows are etched pointing to these spots concerned me a bit. The location for the front is literally all the way on the front, right up against the windshield line.

The rear location is where the sunroof ends...which happens to be nearly right in the middle of the roof line, not closer to the rear. So we're talking only about 2ft or so apart between the front and rear mount points.

I'm not entirely convinced based on these locations that it's really a roof rack point, but rather a service point for maybe removing the panel?

I apologize if this has been posted but I couldn't find any threads that discussed the actual placement location of these so called roof rack mount points.

I have to take my rental back in since it's having some issues so hopefully it's still around and I can take pics this time.

 

[Ivan.R]

I was dropping my car off for service and of course, it was the one time I left my cell phone at home so I couldn't take pictures. VIN was 086.

Service advisor told me it was a customer's car but must be employee or relative of employee due to the low VIN?

In either case, I was excited to see one up close for the first time.

I DID want to mention one thing around the possible points for roof racks that have been talked about. I didn't peel up the rubber seal of course, but just looking at the points where the arrows are etched pointing to these spots concerned me a bit. The location for the front is literally all the way on the front, right up against the windshield line.

The rear location is where the sunroof ends...which happens to be nearly right in the middle of the roof line, not closer to the rear. So we're talking only about 2ft or so apart between the front and rear mount points.

I'm not entirely convinced based on these locations that it's really a roof rack point, but rather a service point for maybe removing the panel?

I apologize if this has been posted but I couldn't find any threads that discussed the actual placement location of these so called roof rack mount points.

I have to take my rental back in since it's having some issues so hopefully it's still around and I can take pics this time.

There's a roof rack mentioned in the manual.

See page 133 of the manual here: MODEL3-LAownersmanual.pdf

 

[derekmw]

Thanks. So yeah, if these are the mount points, it's going to be pretty close to each other. Here is a shot of the top panel. Basically, the arrows are on each end of the glass on top

 

[Mishakim]

Seems reasonable that they'd be aligned with the cross-members for support. That should still be far-enough apart for ski bindings to fit between, and it's more than the minimum required by most racks I've used. I had a Thule rack on a Beretta (single, long door per side), and that put them closer together than this.

 

[derekmw]

Yeah, for those things, I think it would be fine. But for my use case, I would have liked to mount some surfboards (mine are all 9ft and longer) which typically isn't a problem but if they're this close to each other, it may not be safe. I guess I'll have to just wait and see what the specs are on it but it def looks a bit funny from the side to see where they will be positioned. It reminds me of those Thule/Yakima racks made for small coups like this:

 

[Buook]

I can definitely see how these might be mistaken for or even could be panel removing tabs

 

[Zaphod]

I was dropping my car off for service and of course, it was the one time I left my cell phone at home so I couldn't take pictures. VIN was 086.

Service advisor told me it was a customer's car but must be employee or relative of employee due to the low VIN?

In either case, I was excited to see one up close for the first time.

I DID want to mention one thing around the possible points for roof racks that have been talked about. I didn't peel up the rubber seal of course, but just looking at the points where the arrows are etched pointing to these spots concerned me a bit. The location for the front is literally all the way on the front, right up against the windshield line.

The rear location is where the sunroof ends...which happens to be nearly right in the middle of the roof line, not closer to the rear. So we're talking only about 2ft or so apart between the front and rear mount points.

I'm not entirely convinced based on these locations that it's really a roof rack point, but rather a service point for maybe removing the panel?

I apologize if this has been posted but I couldn't find any threads that discussed the actual placement location of these so called roof rack mount points.

I have to take my rental back in since it's having some issues so hopefully it's still around and I can take pics this time.

Sounds normal to me. I'm quite certain these are indeed for the rack attachment. 2ft apart would be more than adequate.

 

[derekmw]

2ft may be fine for ski's, etc. But when you're talking multiple lonboards (to stack even 2 boards, now the bottom board has to slide forward an extra few feet to allow room for the board on top to clear the front cross bar), it becomes dangerous to mount due to the fact that now the boards extend further over the front hood area where it can pick up a lot more upward wind - combined with the lack of counter support against this on the rear cross bar (because it's too close to the front cross bar).

 

[Zaphod]

2ft may be fine for ski's, etc. But when you're talking multiple lonboards (to stack even 2 boards, now the bottom board has to slide forward an extra few feet to allow room for the board on top to clear the front cross bar), it becomes dangerous to mount due to the fact that now the boards extend further over the front hood area where it can pick up a lot more upward wind - combined with the lack of counter support against this on the rear cross bar (because it's too close to the front cross bar).

Well, the 3 is still mid-size car and as you highlighted in your post above, the locations at the front A-pillar and B-pillar are the best structural members to attach to. With the large rear glass window, looks like compromise was made on the rack attachment positions. I imagine accommodating long boards on roof rack for pretty much any car outside larger SUVs is a challenge.

There is picture in one of these posts that show a surfboard on the roof, but they did not use a roof rack (obviously since it's not available yet). I think it was just strapped to the roof somehow. Couldn't find it, but will keep looking. There was another picture that had bike rack but they used Seasucker rack. Might be what you need to use to get longboards to fit decent.