I have a 2013 Limited Hybrid but would guess all Gen 2 models are the same.

At the front and rear of the left & right roof rails are tapered black plastic covers. These can be gently pried off with a thin wide blade screw driver (note: I removed mine in August so they were pretty hot), you need to make sure yours are very warm on all sides or they will crack/break!! Suggest using a blow dryer to pre-heat one at a time, remove then move to the next one. Once the covers are off there are 1-2 mount bolts at each end. Figure out what size wrench will remove them, again pre-heat and remove then move to next one. I also sprayed a little penetrating lube around each bolt before removing and again inside roof mount holes when reinstalling the bolts.

Once all 4 ends are free, lift off entire rack including the cross bars. I did mine alone but a helper is recommended! Then unscrew the knobs and remove cross bars by sliding out of each rail. I reinstalled my side rails and black covers after thoroughly cleaning the areas on roof and applying a coat of Nexgen ceramic coating. I left off the cross bars to improve fuel economy.
Hope this helps!

 

This is very helpful, but I'm only interested in removing the cross bars from a rack on a Highlander in the parts yard.

Do I just unscrew all the knobs and slide one side all the way forward to slip it out of the track? That's the only way I could think of.

 

The only way I could get off the cross bars was the described procedure. I tried the knobs route but was unsuccessful.

 

WOW that sounds crazy to me. That just seems like a lot of work that other manufacturers don't require.

Certainly there must be other people who've removed these and know if the bars can be easily removed...

 

Yeah tell me about it! Hopefully another forum member knows a shortcut!
Good luck!

 

Any luck finding a YouTube vid on this?

 

If Toyota made those crossbars easy to remove, our forum would be full of people complaining how theirs got stolen.

 

Good point!

 

Knobs, you'll have to unscrew them. It may be stuck due to years of neglect. You might need a lot of spray lube and possibly a wire brush to clean the threads if visible. Good luck!

 

OP: You can try to remove the knobs but as I recall, mine only loosened to a “stop point” that allowed the cross bars to be slide fore/aft but the blocks inside the side rails have to be slid out as described in my original procedure.
Again, maybe some model years are different. Just don’t strip threads in those slide block mounts.