How quiet are Thule Wing bars?

I’ve got a new car and it’s got a fancy glass roof. Very nice but doesn’tmuffle the noise of my current Thule aero bars. Thinking of upgrading to Wing. Is it worth it, are they noticeably quieter? Will any gain be negated by still having rack on the bars?

Cheers

I find the feet make more noise on some cars
I also find that every last mm of ‘channel’ needs filling with rubber stripping for maximum shoosh.
And keeping below 65 also helps.

Mine live on the car, they’re pretty much silent at any speed in the dry but in heavy rain at higher speeds they can make a quiet low pitched whistle/howl. The kids call it them the “spooky roof bars” 😂 it’s has never bothered me enough to remove them and they only get used a few times a year for a roof box.

What’s wrong with your stereo?

Similar glass panoramic roof and just a thin fabric blind. My Thule square bars make a racket, starting to howl when I go over 40 with the roof tent. Some of it is the einf going through the gap between bars and bottom of the tent base (the howling went when I filled the gap with some pipe lagging as a little experiment.  The higher pitch whistling was still there. I suspect that’s the feet / rail clamps.

I was interested in finding out how quiet Yakima’s latest area offering is.  For starters it’s not got the cut-to-suit filler strip for the T slot but an inbuilt one thst just folds out the way around the bolt.

I’ve had two sets of Yakima whispbars on various cars and they’re superb. For ultra quietness go for the flush bars which end in the foot units, for space go for the throughs. The self closing gap is brilliant.

iirc roofbox let you try out your purchase.  Call them they’re extremely helpful.

I’ve got the Evo version on my Volvo and they do increase the noise “a bit”. Thule say try moving them about a bit to find the sweet spot for noise but they’re not so bad that I can be bothered to doo all that testing. They seem to kill the fuel economy though by about 10mpg at 70 on the motorway (according to the dashboard readout anyway) which I’m surprised about.

Unless you’re planning on just driving around with nothing on the bars (which is very daft) you’ll probably find that it’s what’s on the bars that makes more noise than the bars themselves.

Mine are quiet but not silent. Below 30mph there’s nothing. Above that a bit of wind rushing noise. No whistling though.  I don’t have the bike racks on unless I need them.

I’m going to try the paracord trick this weekend.

https://youtu.be/caGCLkke3kI?si=an28vnP6BB7WQwJ0

I was interested in finding out how quiet Yakima’s latest area offering is. For starters it’s not got the cut-to-suit filler strip for the T slot but an inbuilt one thst just folds out the way around the bolt.

This is the same for Thule Evo too

I’m going to try the paracord trick this weekend.

I did that on some old square bars years ago. They had a long 4mm diameter rod underneath, full width that tightened up to pull the feet in to hooks. Anything over 30mph was a unbearable whistle. I spiraled the cord around and instantly they were a world of difference. Still had the noise from the square bar above, but no more whistle. It’s the same principal that they use on tall chimneys to prevent them whistling in the wind.

I went from Thule Aero to Wing when changing cars.  The difference wasn’t noticeable IMHO, plugging all the little gaps in the slots had more of an effect.

Yakima Railbars = absolutely silent and un-noticeable. They sit lower than any of the other options I’ve seen.

Its there wing profile bar combined with the lowest profile feet – youll need to have open, traditional roof rails though.

Cannot reccomend highly enough.

https://www.yakima.co.uk/aero-railbar