I love my new 2019 CX-9 for lots of reasons, but I am disappointed that the roof rack
cross bars are in one fixed position. i would like the cross bars to be further apart to
better attach my canoe. The canoe is only 45 lb and 14 foot long.

Any procedure for re-attaching the cross bars with a greater spacing between them ?

 

There should be three different mounting points down each roof gutter. ( at least there is on Japanese built models)

 

Thank you for your reply. My Mazda was made in Japan. It does have 3 pairs of rectangular caps down each roof rail where the roof rails mount to the car. The crossbars screw to the inside surface of the roof rails.

 

I had the dealer install mine when I bought the car so I assumed there was only one position. Most of the new top boxes like my Thule have the adjustment mechanism built in to adapt to a variety of roof racks. They do seem close together but in my case it works.

 

One alternative might be to install Thule crossbars instead of the Mazda crossbars--check the mounting location options. The Thule bars are expensive, though.

Hmmm...maybe...remove one rail and look inside. Are the existing blind nuts in a reinforced area of the rail? Does it look like additional blind nuts (rivet nuts) can be installed in other locations? M6 is the thread size.
https://www.mcmaster.com/#blind-nuts...eacb94juu3a1iu

 

Ok. I will dig into this.

 

Did you end up finding a solution to this? We’re having the same problem with my cx9 and find that the Mazda roof racks aren’t positioned well at all.