I know there's a perfectly good solution to the bike rack conundrum, however...

We've picked up a BNIB Thule Superb Short for a decent price, I think they look good on the front of the Troll and we wanted the tilting function, etc. Anyway, I've got the two options, T bar mod which has been done on here before, although I'm not hugely technical in that regard. My other option (I assumed) was to contact a dealer and negotiate a price for labour and fitting the official mod, as seen in some 'for sale' posts.

No dice, LF don't fit them, and AL dismissed me immediately after I mentioned 'customer supplied parts', even though its BNIB. The AL response is particularly frustrating as they fit this exact rack for upwards of £500

We're a good 300 miles from AL, so fuel plus fitting isn't worth it imo.

The racks on Gumtree for now... maybe I was asking too much assuming a dealer could assist.

Tow ball and Xpress it is then!

Hi Colin,

I'm currently on the phone to AL, it seems my follow up email may have done the trick, although I'm not sure the overall cost of fitting a new one with them would be much more than the quoted cost of labour and parts.

Frustrating but we may have a solution.

I'll be honest, I didn't try KK based on there being no mention of bike racks on their site.

I'm up north anyway for social reasons next week, so I may have a 530 for company!

Update:

After a polite and productive conversation with Rosie at AL I'm booked in.

In hindsight it's probably saved me what I'm about to spend on fuel, and I see their reasoning regarding fitting customer parts, hardly a good business model.

AL fitted my rack this week, excellent service, all done in less than 2 hours, just a shame it was a 600 mile round trip!

Although the night at Tebay Services was surprisingly comfortable, and the pie was excellent.