I've had Thule rectangular bars for a while and they are certainly far from quiet. Are round bars less noisy than rectangular while the Whispbars are the quietest of them all? Wondered if anyone had real world comparisons they'd share.

Thanks in advance.

 

Round bars will be just as loud as the square ones TBH (because science). The whispbars will be the quietest. If you want to quieten the ones you have, wrap a few coils of rope/twine around them. This causes the air to separate from bar and not cause the drag that leads to the sound. This is similar to how a golf ball works.

 

Thanks Sam!

 

We use the Thule aerobars on the 4runner and it seems decently quiet. But we haven't had any other before this.

 

I found some Yakima Whispbars at rackattack.com that look like they'd be a great replacement and easily moved to another vehicle in the future

https://www.rackattack.com/base-roof...s45-base-rack/

I'll probably go this route. My car lives with a rack 85% of the time I drive it so the noise has to be reduced as I can't even drive with the roof open at low speeds with it on.