I'm seriously considering removing the roof rack on my '99 Legacy Outback wagon. Will this necessitate some body work ie filling the holes with metal, welding, grinding, priming, painting, etc? Are there any aftermarket inserts to fill the holes?

 

I've had this car 7 and a half years, and used the rack exactly once. I don't need it, and very likely never will. Since I plan to drive it into the ground, resale is not a consideration.

Holes to fill indeed. Id just take the crossbars off the rest of the rack shouldnt cause much wind resistance or anything.

I recently dropped my headliner to fix a sunroof leak in my 02 OBW. It took about an hour and a half to just remove all of the panels at the A, B, C and D pillars, the seat belt anchors through the B pillar, the overhead assist straps, sunvisors, etc., just to get at the sunroof mechanism. Once there I found 6 bolts that hold the sunroof in place. Take the reinstall time for the headliner and all, and you have a lot of time and bother adding up. Trying to weld the holes closed afterwards could drop hot sparks down into the interior of the car = fire or singed seats or carpets. And if you've got three stage pearlized paint as my 02 does, blowing in the paint can be a *&^%$# to get a correct match. Been there, done that, don't want to do it again anytime soon. I agree with the other respondent .... remove your crossbars and leave the rails well enough alone, unless you have gobs of free time and don't really care what the results look like. By the way, both my present OBW and my last 98 OBW never had the roof cross rails out of their original boxes. I've never used them. I guess I'm a lot like you!