Yakima Whispbar Flush Bar Roof Rack System - Universal Car Roof Rack for Bikes, Kayaks, Cargo & More | Perfect for Outdoor Adventures, Camping & Road Trips

An amazing rack and probably the best. Why just 3 stars? Have you ever craved buying a do it yourself product which cost $500 and comes with a 25 cent set of directions? If your answer is, "YES", then you are going to be totally freakin' stoked on the Whispbar! What should have been a 30 minute job took me about 3 plus hours and a re-order. Why? First of all, the Yakima Whispbar website does a piss poor job of telling you what rack you need for your car and the roof rack setup it has. Call customer service. They can tell you so a thumbs up there - if you are more careful than me, hopefully you have done that right off the bat. So I dropped about $520 on my rack and the fit kit that I needed and my assumption is that most people who are dropping $500 on a rack - also need a fit kit. What you get in terms of directions is about 4 front and back photocopied, crappy black and white pages on which you can hardly see photos and the text was just about written in binary code - minimal and not explaining s#%T. If you happen to be a genius like me who is also lightly handy around machinery and the house, you will probably trouble shoot or brail your way through to the positive result you are seeking. If you are anything less, then good luck!!! Hey WHISPBAR, how about a FULL COLOR and full or bigger size photos or depictions, instruction manual so putting this together is not a science project? Can you send another $3 on the presentation. Gezus H. Wow. Now I'm going to take a nap but first, look out my upstairs bedroom window at my accomplishment on the roof of my car. If you get this on, on your own, with the fit kit switcharoo, you definitely are in the top 20% of manly men. If not, sadly you are justified to go get some help, but you are simply in that lower category. Good Luck!These are the first crossbars I've had experience with because all the other vehicles with racks I've been in were SUVs, with their own crossbars. They've been on the car for about a month now. The only gripe I have was I think the mounting screws should have been a little bit longer because I had to put a lot of pressure on the unit to get the screw to seat before it would start tightening to the car. I have a fixed mounting point roof now (2010 WRX) so I didn't need to try the window mounts. Either way, that seems to be more of an issue with the K368 fitting kit that I had to get to make it match my car. They are very quiet, though. I can only barely hear them and that's probably more the rack than the whispbar. Mounting was very easy. I actually measured it out on my living room before I went out to the car to mount it. I think you can leave that step out. Mounting the yakima 8053002 rack was ridiculously easy too. The locks and other hardware seem solid enough, although, if you put so many skis or boards in there that it can only clamp down to the first notch, when you shut it, it seems a bit worrisome just because it looks like it might be less secure but I took the skis on the freeway and there was no problems, at all. They only got a four because as a package, I feel like the mounting screws were about 3 mm too short and that may say something for everyone else, considering all of my rack came from the same company.These are certainly not the cheapest crossbars you can buy, but there are advantages to paying a bit more. For one, they look very nice - sleek, low profile, and much nicer looking than any of the alternatives I've seen. Another advantage - the channel at the top for attaching components works really really well. I can remove a rail in minutes, and when I add something there then tighten it down I know it's not going anywhere. The attachments that wrap around the crossbar work fine, but I've had some that didn't fit to the contour of the bar and made me less than confident. These don't have that issue, and components that lock into the channel just look nicer as well - they sit lower, and they look better.As for sound - these are in fact quite. But they're not silent. Don't expect to not hear them at all, because you probably will - especially if you have a sun roof as I do. But that pretty much goes for any cross bar. I've had round Yakima bars in the past, and these are quieter. Of course, once you get components on top, the noise factor goes up, but it's still not bad; I keep my bike rails on permanently and the noise doesn't bother me.Overall, a great buy. Make sure to get the model that fits your car. Pay a bit more for these and enjoy the benefits.Relatively easy install. It took 40 minutes front to back. First, I picked where I wanted the towers to sit (relative to the b / c pillars) and marked with masking tape. Then I cleaned the areas on your roof where I would be installing the rack. I set my cross-bars to the appropriate length as specified in the fitting kit (though the length was fairly intuitive to set without specific instructions) and placed everything on the roof of my vehicle. Finally, I attached the fitting kit (basically bent powder-coated sheet metal with 3m protector strips) to the crossbars and tightened everything down.The end result is quite aesthetically pleasing and has proven to be very quiet and functional so far. I did attempt to paint the fitting kit so that it might be less conspicuous. These parts normally ship matte black. The rack does not exhibit any vibration or whine well up to 80mph, nor has it appreciably affected my gas mileage. These were my primary reasons for going with this rack rather than cheaper square / round bar racks. This rack locks to the car and comes with a single key matched to all four locks. I have little fear of anyone attempting to remove the rack from my vehicle.All said, this is far pricier than many racks that I considered, but I am well pleased with the purchase and recommend the Whispbar wholeheartedly.Excellent rack that causes a minimum noise and has a low impact on fuel consumption. Really fast shipping.