Bike rack - rear or roof?

Morning all - long time lurker and first post!

We're driving to France on holiday in August and I'm currently looking at saving ourselves a few quid on bike hire charges so was investigating bike carriers.

There are four of us - two adults, one 5 year old and a 2 year old. Although we don't need it yet I'm thinking it makes more sense to get a four bike carrier as at some point there will be four adult sized bikes to take away. So my question is - rear mounted or roof?

I've seen some people say the rear wheel mounted racks aren't ideal for 4 bike carriers so might avoid that (unless anybody disputes that!) so would be tow bar mounted. I'm a *bit* cautious about roof mounted as I'm the kind of idiot who would forget about the extra height and drive into a car park barrier...

Anyway, would v much appreciate any tips as google and previous posts on here aren't helping atm.

Cheers!

I think you might find that the spare wheel on Freelander would interfere with a tow bar rack.

If it does, you could maybe get a roof rack to put the spare wheel on... but its getting a bit silly then.

I used a Thule towbar mounted bike carrier on my freelander with no issues at all and it cleared the spare wheel no bother

Dont the Tour de France cars have them on the roof. I have seen a few like this when Velodrome in Manchester have their riders during Olympics training.

There's a spare wheel mounted carrier cycle rack available for the Freelander. I regularly carry 5 bikes with my SE. 2 on the roof, 2 on the rear and 1 in the boot.
Like this.

but do not for get if you put one on the roof and have the bikes on do not go into a car park with the barriers on or if you put a spare wheel bike mount on remember the new number plate over the back of the bikes my mate has just been done for this now he has a trailer board on the back of the bikes

Regularly carry 4 bikes on the ZTT's roof. I've not encountered any problems, but don't regularly come into restricted height access areas when loaded.

The FL is that much taller, so I'd imagine loading is going to be a bit more of a challenge, so rear mounted might make most sense?

I'm getting roof bars for my 3-dr Hippo, and plan to investigate roof mounting bikes to that...