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Ever gotten fed up with the horrific howling at 50+ MPH from the your fitted roof racks? well i have a strange hack for you which years latter still leaves me laughing at my dads strange and brilliant impromptu ingenuity. A length of decent sized plastic pipe along the front of the racks will solve said noise. I'am sure this probably ruins everything to do with aerodynamic properties but then did the M59 have much in the begin with?. From what i understand it may gain 4 or 5 MPG average but it doesn't really hurt the bank it just makes 50+ miles an hour a bit more bearable to those who aren't use to the howling or hate it with a passion. Give it a try. Hope it helps.
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If I put half a dozen pipes of different lengths up there, in a row, then got to over 50mph, would they play Dixie for me, or sweet home Alabamee?
Good idea though. The whistling is caused by the airflow splitting into two as it goes over and under the thin roof rack bar; a thicker 'bar' or pipe would bring the note down very low, possibly making it inaudible against road noise etc.
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Not unheard of. On my VW Transporter with full roof rack I put some foam pipe lagging on the leading edges which made an amazing difference.
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I fitted my rack without the vertical load stops, it howled like a bastard at 65mph. Thankfully, fitting the load stops broke up the airflow enough to stop it.
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