I had Sea Suckers on my old Jetta and they ended up ****ing up my paint. It was noticeably lighter looking where the suckers were. When the spring rolls around I'm going to get a hitch installed and find a 2 or 3 bike rack.

Hitch install option is great, and amazingly you may tow with it!

I managed to fit my 19.5" Top Fuel in the trunk for a trip to the mountains (wheels fit in as well):



It was around 500 miles round trip, so the 5 minutes of taking off the seat post and stem (pop it off, lay the the stem/bar inline with the fork) was worth it from na MPG and noise perspective vs. my hitch rack.

I really want SeaSuckers. This is the first report I've seen of paint issues. That is definitely a concern. Did you leave them on fo a long time? I would only put them on when I need to transport the bike.

I wasn't leaving them on for longer than I had to really, like if I went riding for the day I'd leave them on for a few hours so I could shuttle. Probably a month after use I noticed the paint discoloration and at that point I just started leaving them on cause the car was a pos anyways.