Just having a roof rack on the car (with no bikes on it) already reduces fuel economy. I think Ford mentioned that a roof rack cuts fuel economy by some 15% when driving at freeway speeds -- now throw some bikes on the rack and it cuts economy by some 25%!!!

I bought a receiver hitch mount so I could use a hitch-mounted bike rack. That way the bikes are behind the car in the 'draft' zone.

One more thing... 4 bikes is no problem in the back of the FEH. I occasionally put my bikes inside the car when I want to keep them out of the weather. Throwing 2 bikes in the back doesn't even take half the available space. I know I can put 4 bikes in the back easily and maybe more if I was really careful).

To get the bikes inside I have an ordinary piece of lumber (it's a 1x4 pine board about 2-1/2' wide. I measured the width of the split fold down seats and cut the board to the width of the seat directly behind the driver seat) On the piece of lumber I mounted a few front-fork mounts (see http://www.performancebike.com/shop/...tegory_ID=4413 - I didn't get this particular brand, I just picked up mine at a local bike shop, but there's a link with photos to give you an idea of how it works.). If you check the photos of the product in the link you'll see that they bolted each mount on a slight angle so that the handlebars of the neighboring bikes don't interfere with each other -- this lets you get tighter spacing.

I'm pretty tall so my bike seat post is set up a bit too high. I do have to lower the seat post to get it inside, but other than that there's no problem with having enough room.

I like having the bikes inside the car when I can do it because there's no wind drag, they're safe from weather, and with the dark tinted rear glass they aren't really noticed in the car so I don't worry about theft so much.

I'm not sure a station wagon would have the cabin roof height to fit the bikes unless they are laid down.