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I am looking at getting some roof bars for the car which has flush rails, have been looking at Thule Wing Bars, is there a noticeable difference between aero bars and square ones with regards to noise?
Quite a big difference IME - wingbars are near-silent (and minimal impact on mpg) if it's just the bars on and you have the rubber trim strips in place. Add bike racks and they get a bit noisier.
I leave the bars on all the time and just add a bike rack or two when I need them.
In my experiance you dont get much noise from bars on there own - its when you put something on the bars that you can get a lot of noise and aero does help. I'd go aero but i'd also suggets the halfords own brand stuff is a decent low cost alternative to Thule.
Depends on how you intend to use your roof bars as to whether it's worth the expense of going aero. My old car had roof rails so I only ever had the bars on when I needed them as it's so quick to put them on and off. Current car has fixpoint and I use the roof bars multiple times per week so not worth the hassle to keep removing them. My 20 year old square bars are still going strong so refuse to change them for aero but they are bloody noisy which does make converting to aero tempting.
It's the bike racks that create noise on the roof really, as long as you have the rubber strips fitted in the T-Tracks on the wing bars they are near silent. I rarely take mine off these days and the MPG impact is negligible.
The bars will stay on all the time so think I will go aero, thanks.
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