I washed the car this afternoon, and put roof bars on, now it sounds like I've got a wheel bearing gone :-/

You sure its not the wind noise of the roof bars?

I'm not quite sure, never had roof bars on a car, so that might explain the noise

There's an easy way to find out...........

Roof bars make a hell of a noise, cant see how washing it would destroy your wheel bearings, if it did I would have new ones every week !

The Aero roof bars on my mk2 make an howling noise when travelling over 30-40mph.

God knows what the less aerodynamic bars sound like.

Guys, if you get noise from the bars, try moving them slightly backwards or forwards. Even a few cm helps sometimes. I managed to get mine totally quiet, and I have the Skoda originals. I took a few tries, but was well worth it for a 4000km roadtrip

I've got Thule Aero bars on my estate and mine seem to be pretty quiet, I get a slight whistle (but that is because I don't put the end clips on).

You could also try opening or closing the sunroof blind and see if it's noisier with the blind open as a further test for wind noise.

If I just have roof bars on they make a right noise. As soon as I put 2 bike carriers on I can hardly hear it. They disrupt the airflow around the bars. I've seen videos on YouTube about tying rope in certain ways between the bars to do the same thing.