Thule M.O.A.B. (690) Review:

I just purchased the Thule M.O.A.B today from G.I. Joes for $250 on sale $290 regular price. I purchased the M.O.A.B because I previosly had a Playpen and the price was lower than the Yakima LoadWarrior.

At first I liked the new Thule logo in the metal mesh plate on the side and the adjustable load bars that go accross the basket just like the Playpen had. However appon assembly I noticed that the quality has gone down from the Playpen. The basket does have larger tubbing making it appear strong and aggressive, but the two halves of the basket do not slide together like they used too. Instead they are held together by the two plastic side pieces and two round plastic tubes for the bottom tubes. Instead of four screws there is now eight for the basket and eight that hold the plastic side panels together. Alligning the parts and the predrilled holes is agrevating.

The mounting brackets for the load bars have also changed. Gone is the keyed access and ease of use. Now you have a Alan wrench with a security tip and a square nut. Who wants to lug around special tools to readjust the load bars when you could you the same key as the rest of your gear? As for security those Alan wrenches are available at every hardware store so anybody with a $ .50 tool can remove the load bars and everything that is attached to them.

Last the mounting brackets are improved with a system that looks an ahfull lot like Yakima, in fact I would almost sware that the M.O.A.B. was made by Yakima. The brackets are V shaped, a great emprovement over the flat, however for our VX the mounting brackets are off by approximately 1/4" + from sitting correctly on the roof rails. And because the mounting brackets, like the Yakima LoadWarrior, have no fine tunning ability, they can only be possitioned inbetween the rods of the basket at approximately 4 1/4" spacing.

Conclusion: The basket could be exteneded slightly be removing the bottom plastic tubes and replacing them with longer metal/plastic tubes but then the side panels would also need to be modified. Which there is problem, the small tubes that usually curve up from the bottom and join into the large tube at the top don't in the middle. Their cut off. Left plain and are just covered up by the plastic side pannel. So if you extend the basket you would have these unfinished open tubes with no support.

I'm completely discussed with this product and will be returning it first thing tomorrow. This product is not even comparable to the Playpen.