I am shortly going to have to buy new bars as changing car. I have used the standard bars for the last few years with 591 carriers. Is there any advanatge (apart from maybe visual) to aerobars ? To me they seem more expensive, less secure mounting for the carriers and fiddley for taking carriers on and off ??

Just as secure
Easy removal of carriers
Better fuel economy (supposedly, I have no reference point as the square bars I had were on a different car to the aerobars)

Expensive maybe, they are secure and the Thule carriers slide on/off in seconds.
Depends if your just using the bars for the bikes and taking them off the car after each use. If that's the case don't waste your money but if you keep them on and have other stuff on the roof then there is much less faff.

I thought that the carriers were just held on with those little T pieces ? on the removal front, do you not have to slide the whole thing off the end ? (mine will be on a car with roof rails if that makes a difference ?)

interested in the economy as the bars (not carriers) will remain on car all the time

Yes you do have to slide the carriers off, but it's not hard or fiddly.

Yes they are held on by 3 T bolts, but they are secure, even with a 28lb bike up top & a bit of Colin McRae inspired driving on the back roads.

They are the T things but there are 3 on each of the Thule racks. To remove you do have to slide them out of the 'gutters' but they just slide out. Got a Passat with the roof rails, think they use the same feet so that won't matter.

Orangista,
I'll leave this one for you….there must be an echo in here 😆

thanks for that – might try and get some more info on the economy. cheers

Almost forgot, they are less noisy than square bars too (on similar cars)

echo echo

echo…

lol

lol.

Unfortunately I will need to buy new T bolts as I stupidly didn't hang on to them…. they seem to come in 61mm and 35mm lengths – any clue which ones I need to order ?

cheers again

61….was I first?

hehhehe

Just found the manual – 2 x 61 for the front and 1 x 35 for the back 😆

thanks all

Mine are slightly longer looks like 73 and 47, but must be a right.

I upgraded from square to aero bars recently. the main advantage is that you can use the whole width of the bar to mount things on, with square bars you are limited by the foot that attaches to the car as you have to clamp around the bar.

I can get 4 carriers on the aero bar but I could only get 3 on the square bars

I've only had the aero ones, and couldn't tell they were on – if they were making any noise it wasn't audible at any speed. Friends with square bars usually have a speed where you get a whistling noise from the turbulent air.

thanks all, will go for the aero bars I reckon. cheers