I have a 2018 Subaru Forester that I bought a set of Yakima Timberline towers and a pair of Corebars for. Using the supplied tool, I have had two of the barrel nuts strip out on the tower's band tensioning system. Short of poor quality control, the only thing I can think of is that the Yakima supplied install tool is defective and allowing more torque to be applied than the parts are rated for.

At this point I'm tempted to return it and opt for Thule or something else but I wanted to see if anyone else has had the same issues. There is the option of opening the tower up and replacing the hardware with something more robust but I'm sure that'd void any warranty that I have.