Whistling Yakima Jay Low

Does anyone have a solution to the whistling Jay Low issue? No problem with kayaks loaded but there is an extremely high pitched whistle when folded down. Raising the cradles a tad helps but it’s still pretty loud. Any suggestions are appreciated.

The physics is airflow over a round bar, so you can try to alter the airflow or the shape of the bar(s). Easy things to try are moving the cradles a little bit fore or aft on the vehicle and/or buying some pipe insulation that fits your bar diameter and taping it to the bars. Might help and might not. Round bars will howl in wind, teardrop shape is best but not practical for you unless you are a welding artist. Yakima may also have hints if you ask them.

Thanks Tom

I take my J bars off. Its only a few thumb screws.

…or turn the radio up.

Hi, I fixed the whistling problem on mine. Might work for you. I used Gorilla tape and taped over the holes on the underside of my Jaylows and now just wind noise (even with my sunroof open) Hope to figure out a more permanent fix, but it worked.
Hope it works for you.

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Thank you so much! I will give it a try.

The wind noise w Yakima bars varies w what car it is on. We had,no idea what people were complaining about w the round rails on the Taurus and Sable wagons. Used stackers that folded down.

The got a Subaru Outback, moved one of the setups over (had one for each wagon) and it was instantly horrible.

Had to get a spoiler add-on to get it under control for the Subaru. Which worked, but showed there is no universal solution.

Blockquote I used Gorilla tape and taped over the holes on the underside of my Jaylows and now just wind noise (even with my sunroof open)

Kind sir… I would like to have your babies right now… I wish I would have year this 3 years ago when you posted it I have been suffering with that god awful whistling… I bought bar pads… I bought a fairing… I would drive with my hand out of my sunroof trying to touch random crap to see if it made a difference for months… I gave up.

My wife added them to her car… Same issue… But I care more about her than I do about myself and I googled it again and read this and pictured over 50 cole bottles being blown on… And I’m like OMG this man is probably speaking truth!

And now I have 2 vehicles that are pretty close to silent in comparison to what they were prior.

Thank you!

This works for most accesorories, I had a Yakima HighSpeed bike mount and covered the holes, fixed the issue so I did to the JayLow as well. Would be nice if Yakima and Thule would engineer something in to cover.