How to find Thule and Yakima product resources and replacement parts

If you’ve just pulled your rack out for the season and found that it doesn’t have all of the parts you thought it did, you might be stuck trying to find some replacements. Thule and Yakima have extensive online resources to help you select the right ones!

Searching rather generically online for something like “Thule bike strap” might yield an assortment of different results, which may or may not work with your rack. Finding the exact part number that you need will be the best bet to making sure you get the right parts the first time. 

Thule spare parts and instruction manuals can be found at thule.com/thule-support/spare-parts, or by navigating to Thule.com, then Support, and select Spare Parts or Instructions. This will take you to a page with a search box and a “Find by category” option.

All of Yakima’s technical information can be found at fitlookup.yakima.com or infolookup.yakima.com. What shows up first may be the fit guide, but you can select “Product technical info” at the top to find a page with a search bar and a category filter. 

If you know the part number or the name of your rack, you can type it into the search box. Usually, the part number should be on a sticker somewhere on the rack, but this could be long gone if the rack has been around a while. 

If you’re searching by name, be aware that Thule often updates racks to use new parts, but with a similar name. For example, the ProRide and ProRide XT look the same, but they use different mounting clamps that are not interchangeable with each other. Similarly, the names T2 and Hull-a-Port have been used for many different racks combined with different suffixes to distinguish the particular model. 

If you don’t know the name of the rack, you can use the “Find by category” option on Thule’s page, or select the categories and products from Yakima’s drop down. Filtering categories will then allow you to select different racks and view a picture of them. On Yakima’s page, make sure to check the “Show Discontinued Products” box if it’s an older rack.

On Thule’s side, once you’ve found your rack, you should see a picture, an instruction page link, and a list of spare parts at the bottom, with letters that match the labels on the picture. For example, here is a link to the page for the Thule T2 Pro XT 2". Some older items might not have all of these options, but most should. Since Thule updated their instruction sheets several years ago to be largely pictograms, it might take some back and forth comparing the instruction sheet to the parts diagram to determine the part number that you need. 

There is one more important note about Thule part numbers. Thule has used a few different part number formats over the years, and some items have had their part number updated to newer formats. Some parts even have 3 different part numbers in different formats associated with the same item. Thule will only call it by the most recent number, but other sellers online might refer to it by the old part number. We try to include the old part number at least in the body of our product listing if we are aware of what it is. 

Yakima’s info page for a rack tends to have a little bit more information. You should still see a picture and a list of spare parts at the bottom, but you also may get a year range that the rack was made, as well as history or updates for the rack. This can play an important role in selecting the right part since sometimes racks have inline changes that require the use of different parts. You will also get a link to the instruction sheet, and sometimes other helpful pages such as hatch clearance for cargo boxes, or hitch dimensions for hitch bike racks. 

Once you find the part you need, the part number can be entered into our search bar to find the item. We try to keep as many replacement parts on hand as possible, for current items as well as older and discontinued racks. Of course, sifting through tech pages to find what you need can be time consuming as well as frustrating if you’re not sure what the rack is called, or if you keep coming across models that all look alike. We’re always here to help you find the parts you need. Feel free to send us a message through our Contact Us page, and include a picture of your rack if you’re not sure of the name. This will help us determine the model name and part number so that we can point you in the right direction!