Um, out of curiosity, why would vasoline make any difference in wind noise? When discussing aerodynamics you are talking about the flow of a fluid (the air) over an object, a lubricant that would reduce noise if two surfaces were rubbing against each other would make little to no difference. This would be like a runner covering his body in KY jelly to allow himself to run faster. Now, if the fittings that attached the cross bars were rubbing and making the noise, THEN this solution would make sense, but from the standpoint of it reducing wind noise, I'm not buying it.

As for SUV's not having as much wind noise with the same setup, a lot of them were designed with roof racks in mind and thus have thicker sound deadening on the roof.

I agree with the fairing solution, it will divert and smooth the airflow and thus reduce the wind noise.

 

The vasoline works on the wind noise. I don't know why, but it just does.

 

Here's a trick that's sort of like the vaseline (cheap and easy) that a guy at REI told me about. Take a thin utility cord/rope. Tie it to one end of the front crossbar and wrap it repeatedly around the crossbar to the other end of the front crossbar (spaced about an inch or so per loop) where you tie it tight. Can disrupt the airflow enough to break the noise - basically got rid of all of the noise from my rack. I used a 10 foot cord which cost $1.60. Doesn't look as cool as a fairing (esp. if you're stuck with the purple cord which was all they had at REI when I bought it), but much cheaper and no one will steal it from your car. And you don't have to move the bars so that you can't use them.

 

Glad you found a way to take away the noise. Did you ever try the vasoline? We applied it just that one time and the noise never came back. It hardened like gel and it looks great. Good luck to you.

 

No, we didn't hear about that one before trying the utility rope. Not sure if they both work well, depending on someone's rack set up, but my view is that anyone who doesn't want to fork over $$ for the fairing should try either (or both) before getting something more extreme.

But, we may take off the silly purple utility cord to try to vasoline at some point soon. Thx for the tip.

 

I ended up taking my 3-bike Yakima rack off and buying a pickup to haul my bikes. The noise from the rack wasn't all that bad but I could never use my sunroof because of all the turbulence. The hit I took on MPG was what got me. I hung the rack over where I park so that when I want to mount it again it will be easy. I do not have permanent rails on my car, rather, I have towers that clamp tot he door frames.

 

Hi, I know nothing about roof racks, except that when I had a set of Rhino Sports Racks fitted on my new 2010 Mazda 3 Hatch a few weeks ago I had to return them due to an extremely loud, low grumbling noise and strong wind drag. In desperation I Googled 'Mazda 3 noisy roof racks' and found this old thread. I read the entry recommending Pro Rack Whispbars and thought I'd give them a try. Sceptical, I phoned Pro Rack's office in NZ and requested a written guarantee that I could get a full refund if they too were noisy (which I got). I also made them promise it wasn't their marketing people in this forum talking them up (!!). I was honestly expecting only a little difference, if anything, but I had the Whispbars fitted today, and.... they are silent!! I've driven around at different speeds, into and away from the wind, and I am so happy with them!! (I can't believe I'm excited over roof racks, I'm not even a car person!). Anyway, just thought I'd share as I know how annoying I found the noise from my original racks. Cheers

 

I have a mazda5 with roof rack. The roof rack came with some cheap plastic pieces that can fit onto the roof rack bars. These cheap plastic pieces should be set all on the first bar and with the small little tail lip pointing up and to the rear of the car. This will fix the whistling noise completely.