I've been looking at roof bars for the mk3 Estate, a topic that seems to have been well covered already but I wondered if anyone else as the panoramic sunroof along with roof bars?

Looking at some of the Whispbar products as something that I can leave on all the time and would just be for the occasional transports of sheet material or 2x4's. 

 

My concern is around interaction between the sunroof and roof bars, so hoped someone might have first hand experience of similar low profile roof bar products and the sunroof?

I would love to know the answer to this too. 

 

I had my ‘aero’ bars on for three weeks last summer but didn’t open the roof at all - I was too fearful of causing expensive damage to the roof. 

 

I plan to refit the bars tomorrow but will have more time to try the roof with the bars not yet tightened to see if I can use the roof and have the bars on semi-permanently. 

 

I suspect the placement of the bars is the key, but that may depend on whether they have to be in a certain place to accommodate my new bike racks! 

 

As per the OP’s post, anyone with prior knowledge able to assist? 

 

Cheers guys. 

I have the Thule wing bar with the 775 low profile “strap” foot, no probs opening the pano roof, plenty of clearance wherever you place the bars. I don’t leave on for longer than necessary, and use mostly with a bike rack / roofbox, which are noisy even with roof closed. At lower speeds (<40mph?) from memory noise was ok if you are careful about fitting the rubber strips to stop wind whistle.

 

if you are fitting bike racks you may want to budget for extra rubber strips to fit in the top channel. if you don’t fit them then the whistling is very apparent. You will need to cut to fit the bike racks and whilst the cut bits will all still fill the full bar width, there will be many small bits. I picked some up from eBay once I’d fitted the bike racks and box and knew what I needed. 

Cheers Andy. Top advice. Hopefully will help the OP too. 

Hi

im also needing advice on the whispbar flush bars. (Fit between the car rails, not on the top)

trying to find the distance between the roof and the bottom of the rail.

Reason  I ask is, where my roof box clamps onto the roof bars is resessed so obviously don't want clamps or roofbox touching the roof. See pic

also the clamps open to 90mm, bars are 85mm so just fit I hope.

cheers for any measurements 

A

I have a set of Thule bars and have opened the roof without any problems, even with a roof box. Incidentally, if you have the false floor in the boot, Thule bars for the cut outs that are built in!

On 01/01/2018 at 15:16, andyasjl said:

Hi

im also needing advice on the whispbar flush bars. (Fit between the car rails, not on the top)

trying to find the distance between the roof and the bottom of the rail.

Reason  I ask is, where my roof box clamps onto the roof bars is resessed so obviously don't want clamps or roofbox touching the roof. See pic

also the clamps open to 90mm, bars are 85mm so just fit I hope.

cheers for any measurements 

A

Andy - I use Thule Wingbars, & have a similar roofbox. The Wingbars are approx 20mm thick (top to bottom), the 'recess' on my toolbox is approx 40mm, so if the bars were flush with the top of the roof rails, and all was flat... - then the box would descend to 20mm below the TOP of the rails. The rails are around 40 - 50mm above the car roof, so all is good... except the roof and the rails curve etc. I reckon it will all fit, but if you have an arial or sharks fin it could be tight.

- my box has a recess that runs for ~75% of the underside (as opposed to the pictured box that has 2 x recesses), I suspect in reality the bars you are looking at actually mount slightly above the top of the roof rails, giving you more wriggle room.

 

don't know if you've seen this thread (scroll down to the end): 

 

Quote

 

Andy-  thankyou for this information, that's very helpful to me, glad you understood my question, wasn't sure I had explained it clearly ..

So going to buy some black whispbars soon, my current square rack off my old mondeo overhangs rails about 6 inches each side so a bit overkill for my half width roofbox.

A

@grumpytwig Finally got round to fitting the bars & bike racks this morning. 

 

They allow the pano to operate normally - result. 

 

I have moved the front bar back a little from its usual position for the roof box and pushed the rear bars right back to avoid the fully open roof - the roof rails are closer together at the back, so it was a bit tight with the glass right back. 

 

Couple of pics. 

Have just been through this process. That's to the previous posters, made it a lot easier.

 

I've gone with the Thule rapid system 775 footing. They provide plenty of clearance. Sunroof operates as it always has. 

 

One thing to note, with all the proride bike carriers on the roof, there is a lot of wind noise when the roof is open. It's not unbearable, but it's definitely there!

 

Anyway, some pics of the result. I think they look awesome in the black.

Nice!! Black bars on a white car with back trim look the business. 

 

Snap. 

Here's the Whispbar / Roofbox / Sunroof combo on my 245 hatchback if it helps.

 

Sunroof opens just fine

 

 

On 07/07/2018 at 14:04, Charlatan said:

 

 

So an interesting post script to this.  That middle bike rack faces backwards, which means there is a nice long flat bit that sits directly above an open sunroof.  Had some rain the other night, followed by a beautiful morning, so family loaded in the car, sun roof open and off we go.  First hard stop and the water that (unbeknown to me) had settled in bike rack overnight came pouring in through the sunroof.  Freak out ensued, but thankfully (by incredible luck) the water ran straight into the (thankfully empty) cup holders  where it was easily mopped up.

 

Anyway, lesson learned!  Oh, and its also a heck of a lot noisier up there with the roof open!