Thule Roofbar Noise

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AndyPHEV

New member
Joined
Jun 6, 2019
Messages
4
Good evening all

Hoping you might be able to help, I recent bought and fitted Thule roof bars onto my 2018 PHEV. I fitted Wing Bars with 753/4030 fittings.

The issue I'm having is with wind noise above 60mph, it is very noisy and almost unbearable to the point of considering removing the bars when not in use (I also have a Thule Top Box that I will fit when needed).

I carefully fitted the roof bars and also fitted all the rubber strips that fill any holes to prevent wind noise.


I am looking for advice, is this a common complaint on the Outlander? I also have the same bars on a Skoda Yeti which are completely silent.

Can anyone offer any positioning details - do I have the bars too far forwards or too far apart etc? Any other suggestions?

Help - thanks in advance.
Andy
 
Is there anything in your setup that is not symmetrical?

My Thule aero bars are silent, but a previous rack (different car) had side posts which needed to be fitted with the pointy side towards the front. Those racks were very noisy when first fitted with the taper pointing towards the rear (away from the direction of travel).

I'm assuming you're hearing wind noise and not vibration?
 
You probably forgot to fit the rubber strips that fill out the slits in the bottom of the bars on the outside of the attachments. That will produce an impressive amount of whistling. The rubber strip is available from Thule dealers. You will need to cut the strip to the correct lengths and fit it to both sides of the attachments. Failing the strips, you can cover the gaps by Duct Tape.
I have the same roof bars by Mitsubishi and they are completely silent. The Mitsubishi variant have pins that fit into the holes on the inside of the roof rails (closed by plastic plugs) that ensure that they are in the correct position. I believe that the Thule branded variant lacks those pins; but you should fit the bars in the same position.
 
Thanks for the comments, I have refitted the bars and rechecked everything....same noise.

In the end I have removed the bars as they are just too loud - I'm doing about 1000miles a week so its just not something I can put up with.

Before I took them off I took these pics, can you spot anything wrong? I'll be sending the pics to where I bought the bars, as well as Thule Tech Support - I am pretty sure I haven't done anything wrong fitting them.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/fgLxduKFioLAWnyG9



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AF1QipOV6vkk7W2_3Pn4sUZH_90ja1UQ0K6IoLfaJWwq


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They look different from the Mitsubishi ones - more rounded. I cannot see on the photos whether you closed all the gaps in the bottom part, both on the outside and the inside. I found out -the hard way- that leaving even a small gap will produce a horrible whistling.
 
I am looking at a set of these to replace my old square bars which are getting a bit battered after 10 years use, and find this thread very interesting.

Because I don’t have Mitsubishi branded bars, I haven’t taken the covers off the guide holes and wonder if this is what might be creating your noise?

I’ve watched a couple of tutorial videos on YouTube and you appear to have done everything right, however, are those locating holes allowing air in to the car’s roof bars, which would certainly create a spectacular noise. If not, is the combination of open holes, partially covered by the foot plate doing the same thing?

Also, we can’t see from the pictures if you have pulled the measuring bars across to close off the slots inboard of the feet.

Let us know how you get on.
 
I don’t think that is the case. I didn’t bother to close the holes when I removed the bars and the roof bars are silent.
 
I've no experience of bars on the PHEV, but I wonder if their position on the roof is important. We used to run a Jeep Cherokee many years ago, and it had permanent bars fitted. The manual said that you should slide both the bars to the rear to reduce wind noise when not in use
 
I have removed the bars from the car now. Back to quiet driving.

The bars were fitted across the Mitsubishi mounting holes, so in theory they were in the same position as genuine Mitsubishi bars would be. Maybe they would be quieter in another position but they were in the OEM positions.

The bars also had all the holes filled or taped over. I couldn’t see anything that might have caused the noise.

I’m really intrigued how some users are reporting quiet bars but my experience was totally the opposite. Very weird.
 
Maybe, but as far as I know the Mitsubishi bars are the Thule ones same as I have. They just say Mitsubishi on them.
 
I found your pictures a bit hard to see/interpret, but I may have noticed one difference...

My aero bars have long rubber inserts that fill the slot in the rail.

I cut that rubber into sections, so that I could fill all the gaps between fittings on the rails.

Did you have a similar thing?
 
AndyPHEV said:
Maybe, but as far as I know the Mitsubishi bars are the Thule ones same as I have. They just say Mitsubishi on them.
They are Thule, but a different shape, flatter. But then, mine are five years old and things may have changed.
 
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