Yakima rack noise

Wrap with rope
I spiral wrapped my bars and noise is gone. Use 1/8" diameter rope and wrap about 4" between spirals. I fastened each end of rope with tie wraps. I would suggest to do this and not to move your front bar back. Keep your bar spread to the max for stability.

Chow

Canoe Brackets
One time I took my gunwale brackets off and had a terrible harmonic from the empty bars (Yakima). I put them back on and moved away from the ends of the bars and it helped. I have a fairing and that seems to help as well. Putting the brackets on took care of the harmonic.

Fairing noise (humming)
There are no cheap tricks as far as I know. Just get the Yakima fairing - it works for about $50-60.

Did you read the other posts? I own
two fairings, and discarded them in favor of Windjammers. Fairings are OK for kayaks, but not for canoes, where their brackets interfere with the gunwales. And they throw air up into canoes under travel, rather than allowing it to take an easier path between the canoe and the car top. I see much less turbulence affecting float bags when not using fairings.



I paid a lot less for my Yakima fairings than 50-60 dollars, but they still weren’t worth the money.

Fairing worked on the Subie
It’s not perfectly quiet, but it brought it down to where it’s not a bother. It was a near howl before at high enough speeds, with or without boats up.



But we never had to do the fairing on the Sable/Taurus wagons. That roof line stays OK quiet without a fairing.



What vehicle are you driving? As above, our experience has been that the car (or truck) makes a huge diff.

Cheapest solution
well, other than just moving the bar a few inches back, which evidently worked for Steve…



My solution would be just to crank up the stereo with some heavy metal.



-rs

Trying to save my hearing
Otherwise, Pat Benetar or Creed would do the trick. :wink:



Someone asked which vehicle…I am driving probably the worst vehicle this side of a soft-top Jeep for wind noise - an '88 Isuzu Trooper. Moving the front bar back a few inches (just behind the most forward setting for the little factory racks) worked. I’m also going to try the “rope trick” and a few others to see if I can move it forward again without the noise.



I can just see that zoot-looking airfoil on the old “boxwagon”. Yeah…that’s the ticket! Thanks, but I think I’ll pass on that. :wink:

I have that exact set-up
my rack is only on when I am carrying kayaks. I takes literally less than one minute to detach and store.