Just bought a Thule roof rack and noticed something a little odd. I've previously had Aerobars which are totally straight but the wing bars seem to be slightly bent. The centre of the bar is about 15mm higher than the edges both on and off the car. This seems to give a slightly odd angle to the feet too.

Is this a feature of the bars being aerodynamic or is there something wrong with them?

Mine are the same, a slight arching over the roof.

A wee bend probably makes them a bit stronger and stops them sagging under a heavy load.

Mine do the same.

Glad to hear that - thanks for the help everyone!

What Aspman said - the bend gives better load capacity and deflection resistence for the same cross section (cost) of material and only a very tiny alteration to the tooling jig.

Think of it as a scale model of an Arch bridge on your roof.