Jason3D
Go Kart Champion
Roof Rack Review - Yakima Whispbar vs. OEM Roof Racks
So I have had some experience with both the Yakima Whispbar (previously known as Prorack until Yakima acquired them in December 2010), on the car for about a year, and the OEM roof rack, on the car for about 7 months. Just thought I would share my impressions of both for anyone who’s considering either option. Before I begin, I will say that both options are very good, but they have some interesting differences.
Yakima Whispbar
OEM
Aesthetics: This is obviously completely subjective, but I actually preferred the low profile, sleek look of the Whispbars.
Usability: Unfortunately, the low profile sleek design of the Whispbar does make them slightly less usable. I mainly used the bars for going to and from the beach with a surfboard, so I can’t comment on attachments or whether snowboard bindings or bike racks work out. Yakima sells a line of accessory attachments for their bars. For me, when I would put surf pads over the bars, you couldn’t help but rub the Velcro a little bit against the roof in order to get the pads on. I tried to be very careful when I put them on, so this wasn’t a deal breaker for me by any means.
Load Capacity/Sturdiness: The Yakima website says that the Whispbar has a load rating of 132lbs for our car. Volkswagen states a load rating of 165lbs for the OEM bars. 33lbs is not much different on paper, but it’s hard to tell what factor of safety Yakima uses versus Volkswagen when they print these ratings. I would guess that VW is much more conservative. I did one trip to Ikea with the Whispbars, and don’t think I was anywhere close to their 132lb limit, but they didn’t inspire as much confidence with a somewhat heavy load. The OEM bars do feel much sturdier. Again, I mainly used the racks for surfboards so the load rating doesn’t really concern me too much, but might be an important factor for others depending on what you expect to carry.
Maintenance: The bars themselves obviously do not require any maintenance, but there’s something important to note here about maintaining your car. The foot design on the Whispbars has a rubber seal around the base. I think the idea of these is to seal out dirt and debris from getting underneath the feet, but there are small gaps on the roof line of our cars that let dirt get in. I leave my bars on all the time, and when I finally took them off to do a full detailing there was all sorts of dirt stuck to the paint on my roof, which was difficult to remove even with clay bar. After getting the roof completely clean and waxed I can still see some marks in the clear coat where the edges of the rubber seals were. Like I said, I leave the bars on all the time so this probably won’t be an issue of you take the Whispbars off between uses. If you do leave them on all the time like I did, I recommend getting some clear 3M paint protection to adhere to your roof under the feet, or at least pulling them off to wash out the debris at least monthly.
Noise: This one is interesting. The “claim to fame” with the Whispbar is how quiet the bars are due to their aerodynamic wing shape, but they are certainly not silent. They actually make a little noise driving around town at lower speeds between 30-45mph. Surprisingly, the OEM bars are pretty much silent up to about 50mph. From 60mph and up, the OEM bars make quite a bit of noise.
With the Whispbars, the wind noise is much less than the OEM bars at higher speeds, and the audible noise from the Whispbars can be completely eliminated simply closing the sunroof shade to get that extra bit of sound insulation. On the other hand, with the OEM bars you can still hear some of the wind noise at freeway speeds even with the shade closed (especially as gusts of wind hits them while you're driving). It seems like the higher profile position of the OEM bars catches the wind more at higher speeds. The lower profile position of the Whispbars seem to catch the wind at lower speeds, and as speed increases the airflow seems to go over the Whispbars, whereas the higher profile OEM bars disrupts the airflow at higher speeds.
Let me throw one more twist in here. The OEM bars make a RACKET when you open the sunroof. This is not so much the case with the Whispbars. They were much, much quieter with the sunroof open. Perhaps the open sunroof creates additional turbulence with OEM bars compared to Whispbars, or if the proximity of the bar to the roof creates some low pressure/higher velocity air that you end up hearing more. I might try a fairing on my OEM rack at some point in the future, but I will have to figure out a way to cover up those stupid Thule/Yakima logos that are written all over them first.
Edit: I have tried a fairing on the OEM rack, and found that it reduced some of the noise, but still wasn't as quiet as the Whispbar.
In case you’re interested, here’s a promotional video that was created by Prorack to demonstrate how the aerodynamic shape of the bar affects sound. As I mentioned, the main flaw of this test is that it’s just the bar by itself in the wind tunnel. They didn’t take into account the airflow when the bars are installed on the car. I would think this has a pretty major effect on the airflow, turbulence, and the sound you end up hearing.
MPG: I honestly didn’t notice any change whatsoever in MPG with the Whispbars for the entire year I had them on the car compared to before they were installed. With the OEM bars, I noticed a slight drop in MPG on longer trips with freeway driving. It’s probably only about a 1-3 mpg difference that I’ve noticed depending on what kind of driving it is. On shorter trips, or on drives under 65mph, I seem to be getting about the same mpg with OEM bars as I did before. Again, it would be interesting to see what the car looks like in a wind tunnel, as the effect is much more noticeable once you hit a certain speed. Either way, 1-3 mpg is negligible enough for me to still leave them on the car most of the time.
Installation/Removal: Both racks use the same mounting points and similar design for attaching to the car. For the front, they both have the brackets with a pin that fits into a small hole inside the weather stripping on the front door, and for the rear they have brackets on the feet that clamp on above the rear window (on the 3 door application). Since the kits that Yakima sells are designed to be used on different cars (with different feet/fit kits) the width of the bars is adjustable. When you first get the Whispbars, you have to slide the feet to the correct width for the roof before attaching the brackets to the car. This initial setup can take some time and messing around with to get the width just right. If you end up buying Whispbars, be sure to refer to the back of the fit kit manual where it tells you what width to set the bars for your car. This makes the initial install much easier, so you don't have to guess whether you set the width correctly and wonder if a load is going to be put somewhere it shouldn't on your roof. The OEM bars are a fixed width designed specifically for the car so no adjustments are necessary. The feet for the OEM bars fit perfectly onto the roof rails without any adjustment. Once the Whispbars are setup for the first time, installation and removal is identical to OEM and only takes about 5 minutes to remove or install.
Cost: You definitely pay a premium for the Whispbar at $450. I purchased mine from www.rackattack.com. I purchased the OEM bars at www.keffervwparts.com for about $250. It’s obviously up to you to decide what you want or if it’s worth the price premium or savings. I liked the look of the Whispbars a lot, and liked the fact that you don’t see them very often.
Summary: If anyone’s still reading this, hopefully some of this was helpful to you. If you have been keeping track of which bar outperformed the other in each of the categories I reviewed, here are what I came up with.
Aesthetics: Too subjective to say one is better than the other
Usability: OEM wins
Load/Capacity: OEM wins
Maintenance: OEM wins because of foot design that doesn’t trap dirt on roof
Noise: I will give this category to Whispbar, since noise can be eliminated with the sunroof shade closed.
MPG: Whispbar is the winner here again, since no change in mpg was noticed.
Install Removal: Draw – Same procedure once the Whispbar has been set up initially
Cost: OEM bars are about 60% of the price of the Whispbars, OEM is the clear winner in this category.
Hope this helps!
So I have had some experience with both the Yakima Whispbar (previously known as Prorack until Yakima acquired them in December 2010), on the car for about a year, and the OEM roof rack, on the car for about 7 months. Just thought I would share my impressions of both for anyone who’s considering either option. Before I begin, I will say that both options are very good, but they have some interesting differences.
Yakima Whispbar
OEM
Aesthetics: This is obviously completely subjective, but I actually preferred the low profile, sleek look of the Whispbars.
Usability: Unfortunately, the low profile sleek design of the Whispbar does make them slightly less usable. I mainly used the bars for going to and from the beach with a surfboard, so I can’t comment on attachments or whether snowboard bindings or bike racks work out. Yakima sells a line of accessory attachments for their bars. For me, when I would put surf pads over the bars, you couldn’t help but rub the Velcro a little bit against the roof in order to get the pads on. I tried to be very careful when I put them on, so this wasn’t a deal breaker for me by any means.
Load Capacity/Sturdiness: The Yakima website says that the Whispbar has a load rating of 132lbs for our car. Volkswagen states a load rating of 165lbs for the OEM bars. 33lbs is not much different on paper, but it’s hard to tell what factor of safety Yakima uses versus Volkswagen when they print these ratings. I would guess that VW is much more conservative. I did one trip to Ikea with the Whispbars, and don’t think I was anywhere close to their 132lb limit, but they didn’t inspire as much confidence with a somewhat heavy load. The OEM bars do feel much sturdier. Again, I mainly used the racks for surfboards so the load rating doesn’t really concern me too much, but might be an important factor for others depending on what you expect to carry.
Maintenance: The bars themselves obviously do not require any maintenance, but there’s something important to note here about maintaining your car. The foot design on the Whispbars has a rubber seal around the base. I think the idea of these is to seal out dirt and debris from getting underneath the feet, but there are small gaps on the roof line of our cars that let dirt get in. I leave my bars on all the time, and when I finally took them off to do a full detailing there was all sorts of dirt stuck to the paint on my roof, which was difficult to remove even with clay bar. After getting the roof completely clean and waxed I can still see some marks in the clear coat where the edges of the rubber seals were. Like I said, I leave the bars on all the time so this probably won’t be an issue of you take the Whispbars off between uses. If you do leave them on all the time like I did, I recommend getting some clear 3M paint protection to adhere to your roof under the feet, or at least pulling them off to wash out the debris at least monthly.
Noise: This one is interesting. The “claim to fame” with the Whispbar is how quiet the bars are due to their aerodynamic wing shape, but they are certainly not silent. They actually make a little noise driving around town at lower speeds between 30-45mph. Surprisingly, the OEM bars are pretty much silent up to about 50mph. From 60mph and up, the OEM bars make quite a bit of noise.
With the Whispbars, the wind noise is much less than the OEM bars at higher speeds, and the audible noise from the Whispbars can be completely eliminated simply closing the sunroof shade to get that extra bit of sound insulation. On the other hand, with the OEM bars you can still hear some of the wind noise at freeway speeds even with the shade closed (especially as gusts of wind hits them while you're driving). It seems like the higher profile position of the OEM bars catches the wind more at higher speeds. The lower profile position of the Whispbars seem to catch the wind at lower speeds, and as speed increases the airflow seems to go over the Whispbars, whereas the higher profile OEM bars disrupts the airflow at higher speeds.
Let me throw one more twist in here. The OEM bars make a RACKET when you open the sunroof. This is not so much the case with the Whispbars. They were much, much quieter with the sunroof open. Perhaps the open sunroof creates additional turbulence with OEM bars compared to Whispbars, or if the proximity of the bar to the roof creates some low pressure/higher velocity air that you end up hearing more. I might try a fairing on my OEM rack at some point in the future, but I will have to figure out a way to cover up those stupid Thule/Yakima logos that are written all over them first.
Edit: I have tried a fairing on the OEM rack, and found that it reduced some of the noise, but still wasn't as quiet as the Whispbar.
In case you’re interested, here’s a promotional video that was created by Prorack to demonstrate how the aerodynamic shape of the bar affects sound. As I mentioned, the main flaw of this test is that it’s just the bar by itself in the wind tunnel. They didn’t take into account the airflow when the bars are installed on the car. I would think this has a pretty major effect on the airflow, turbulence, and the sound you end up hearing.
MPG: I honestly didn’t notice any change whatsoever in MPG with the Whispbars for the entire year I had them on the car compared to before they were installed. With the OEM bars, I noticed a slight drop in MPG on longer trips with freeway driving. It’s probably only about a 1-3 mpg difference that I’ve noticed depending on what kind of driving it is. On shorter trips, or on drives under 65mph, I seem to be getting about the same mpg with OEM bars as I did before. Again, it would be interesting to see what the car looks like in a wind tunnel, as the effect is much more noticeable once you hit a certain speed. Either way, 1-3 mpg is negligible enough for me to still leave them on the car most of the time.
Installation/Removal: Both racks use the same mounting points and similar design for attaching to the car. For the front, they both have the brackets with a pin that fits into a small hole inside the weather stripping on the front door, and for the rear they have brackets on the feet that clamp on above the rear window (on the 3 door application). Since the kits that Yakima sells are designed to be used on different cars (with different feet/fit kits) the width of the bars is adjustable. When you first get the Whispbars, you have to slide the feet to the correct width for the roof before attaching the brackets to the car. This initial setup can take some time and messing around with to get the width just right. If you end up buying Whispbars, be sure to refer to the back of the fit kit manual where it tells you what width to set the bars for your car. This makes the initial install much easier, so you don't have to guess whether you set the width correctly and wonder if a load is going to be put somewhere it shouldn't on your roof. The OEM bars are a fixed width designed specifically for the car so no adjustments are necessary. The feet for the OEM bars fit perfectly onto the roof rails without any adjustment. Once the Whispbars are setup for the first time, installation and removal is identical to OEM and only takes about 5 minutes to remove or install.
Cost: You definitely pay a premium for the Whispbar at $450. I purchased mine from www.rackattack.com. I purchased the OEM bars at www.keffervwparts.com for about $250. It’s obviously up to you to decide what you want or if it’s worth the price premium or savings. I liked the look of the Whispbars a lot, and liked the fact that you don’t see them very often.
Summary: If anyone’s still reading this, hopefully some of this was helpful to you. If you have been keeping track of which bar outperformed the other in each of the categories I reviewed, here are what I came up with.
Aesthetics: Too subjective to say one is better than the other
Usability: OEM wins
Load/Capacity: OEM wins
Maintenance: OEM wins because of foot design that doesn’t trap dirt on roof
Noise: I will give this category to Whispbar, since noise can be eliminated with the sunroof shade closed.
MPG: Whispbar is the winner here again, since no change in mpg was noticed.
Install Removal: Draw – Same procedure once the Whispbar has been set up initially
Cost: OEM bars are about 60% of the price of the Whispbars, OEM is the clear winner in this category.
Hope this helps!
Last edited:
