mikes black ac

Has anyone tried to experiment with the roof rack rails?- the one's that would permanently stay on the roof to put crossbar attachments to if there were such a thing..i don't want to put on a universal thule or similiar brand crossbar attachment. to me it would look cheesy and take away from the beauty of my whip which is still a work in progress to make it more of a beauty.when calling junkyards to see if they might have an acura that would have a set they say the acura tl never had a model with those on them.now correct me if i am wrong but what are those 2 grooves in the roof with trim in them for?i don't remember where i saw a pair that where very expensive,i think at the dealer-but now i can't find them.there has got to be an acura or honda sport,suv,or crossover that would have a set of standard roof rails that would fit on my 02'tl,does anyone know how i would go about it?thanks.

JuicyJ

The "2 grooves" you see are simply seams where the roof panel and body sides are welded together. Then, a snap-in molding is installed into the groove.
I have not bothered to pull them up on my car, but it is somewhat unlikely that there are unused mounting points under those moldings. Most cars don't have them. Some vehicles that were aimed at "adventurous" lifestyles do have mounting points in those grooves.
Some people, who must have the bolt-in racks have installed rivnuts in those grooves so they could bolt down a rack. However, that's a whole PITA project to attempt, you'll be going down a rabbit hole trying to find the parts to properly do it all.
I've attempted this before on other vehicles. My truck has a Leer camper with built in Thule tracks, but since it is from 2007, of course Thule discontinued that product line, and I had to research the previous P/N's and buy overpriced, discontinued hardware to install the rack on my truck. When Thule discontinued that product line, there was still tens of thousands of customers using that system, so the no-longer-made parts became stupidly expensive.

mikes black ac

so that is stupid of them that they put those grooves in to weld the top with the sides when there are other cars on the road that don't have a welded together roof.those grooves gotta be there for some reason..