Roof bars and fixings, halfords Vs Thule?

rangor gubbins

rangor gubbins

rangor gubbins

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I'm about to buy a halfords roof box (exodus 470 l) but need to decide on what bars and fixings to buy. Halfords sell their "advanced aero" bars and fixings for about half the price of Thule's wingman evo bars and fixings. Anyone got experience of the two brands, and Are the Thule bits worth the extra money?
 
Depends what you're going to do with them really and whether the bars will stay on the car permanently or not.

I have Yakima whispbars and they're left on the car year round. When there is no roofbox/bike etc on you'd be struggling to tell they were even on. The Thule wingbars should be pretty much the same.

The Halfords bars on the other hand look like a glorified rectangular bar with some rounded edges to remove a bit of wind noise. These will almost definitely be noisier than the Thules, but equally if you only actually put the bars on the car when you're using them (i.e with box etc) the noise coming from the box itself will drown them out anyway so no big deal.
 
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mingeroonie said:
Just been looking at these as I'm getting a new car next week.
They're not cheap are they :(
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No, they are not. I managed find a second hand one down the road that is immaculate, £200 cheaper than a new one. The guy had left his receipt in the box, it was from 2019 and was only £20 more than what I paid for it second hand!
So these halfords exodus advanced boxes roof boxes cost £270 in 2019 and now cost £460. That is quite some inflation! It's the exact same model as current ones.
 
Ive always bought roof boxes used (well I've bought two, first one too small) as they're the kind of thing that you just need to get rid of quickly once you have little to no use for one. Think I paid £90 for mine and it's the 470l version, plenty of marks and scratches all over it but....well it's a roof box and who cares.

Once you have bars it's easy to go grab a box wherever so long as you have the right kind of fixings, just sling it on top
 
From my limited experience. Halfords Advance Aero bars are 56% quieter than square bars. Thule's wing bars are 96% quieter than square bars. So yes the Thule bars are the quietest option.

If you are going to be running them all year make sure to torque them up correctly when fitting and check regularly that they are still nice and tight. The Thule fitting kits come with the handy Thule ratchet that auto torques to the correct nm.
 
ChrisLandin said:
From my limited experience. Halfords Advance Aero bars are 56% quieter than square bars. Thule's wing bars are 96% quieter than square bars. So yes the Thule bars are the quietest option.

If you are going to be running them all year make sure to torque them up correctly when fitting and check regularly that they are still nice and tight. The Thule fitting kits come with the handy Thule ratchet that auto torques to the correct nm.
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That seems oddly specific :p Did you measure this yourself, or just marketing blurb?

Do they have to be from Halfords, I'm very happy with the Aterra bars I got for my Niro, half the price of the Thule ones, but seem a lot better quality than the Halfords ones I've had before.
 
Haggisman said:
That seems oddly specific :p Did you measure this yourself, or just marketing blurb?

Do they have to be from Halfords, I'm very happy with the Aterra bars I got for my Niro, half the price of the Thule ones, but seem a lot better quality than the Halfords ones I've had before.
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Likewise I'm very happy with the Cruz roofbars I fitted to my car recently - www.roofbox.co.uk
 
I’ve had Thule and Halfords own, the Thule, both bars and boxes were vastly superior.

One thing I noticed with my old car, a Jaguar XF, I found some 2nd hand Jag roof bars on marketplace (FB) and the product code and model number when popped into Google returned Thule

It seems Thule do rebadge a few for certain car manufacturers
 
doesn't the noise from the box far outweigh the noise from the bars ? which you'd take off in the interim if they alone made noise (just a couple of bolts/side on 3estate)
 
jpaul said:
doesn't the noise from the box far outweigh the noise from the bars ? which you'd take off in the interim if they alone made noise (just a couple of bolts/side on 3estate)
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Yup, just buy cheap bars then take them off when you are done.

If it's just once or two a year on holiday or whatever it only takes a few minutes.
 
ChrisLandin said:
HAHA where do you think I work
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Fair enough :D

One thing that put me off Thule bars - they advertise that once you've bought a set, when you change car you can usually reuse the bars or fittings, just get another set of feet to fit the new car.

Well, I had a set of Thule bars for my old car; could I find a foot pack which would fit those bars and my car? Of course not. My bars were obsolete and I needed a completely new set...
 
The other problem when you change cars is that sometimes the bars simply will not physically be big enough - albeit more of an issue with flush fit (I.e inboard of the car) ones. I had to buy two new bars and a new fitting kit from roofbox, although they were surprisingly cheap compared to the cost of a complete new set. Seems a fair bit of the "value" is in the mechanism at the end of the bars to secure them and hold the load that then goes through the foot / fixing kit specific to each car.
 
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rodenal said:
The other problem when you change cars is that sometimes the bars simply will not physically be big enough - albeit more of an issue with flush fit (I.e inboard of the car) ones. I had to buy two new bars and a new fitting kit from roofbox, although they were surprisingly cheap compared to the cost of a complete new set. Seems a fair bit of the "value" is in the mechanism at the end of the bars to secure them and hold the load that then goes through the foot / fixing kit specific to each car.
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IIRC that was the bit that I couldn't get.

There was a fitting kit for my bars that didn't fit the foot pack for the car.
There was a fitting kit for the foot pack for my car, that didn't fit the bars I had.

So I ended up with a full set of the Atera bars off Ebay for £50 (half the price of just the Thule foot pack) and sold my old bars for £25.
 
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My Yakima bars are very good but I wouldn't particularly seek them out over any other aero bar as they're ultimately just lumps of profiled metal with a rubber channel. Roof boxes are a bit more difficult as I struggle to see the value in them new meaning I'd pick any old used box at the right kind of size for me so long as it had side opening and a t track fitting kit could be bought (pretty sure almost anything can be made to fit t tracks now). I'm sure there will be a case of "get what you pay for" up to a certain price point new though depending what really matters to you.
 
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ci_newman said:
Likewise I'm very happy with the Cruz roofbars I fitted to my car recently - www.roofbox.co.uk
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www.ukcampsite.co.uk

The Roof Box Company

The Roof Box Company is the UKs largest specialist online retailer for car roof boxes, bike racks, roof bars, boot liners and car seat covers. In addition, they also have a good range of pet travel products and winter driving accessories
www.ukcampsite.co.uk

5% discount.

Used roofbox a few times and they're warranty service. Always been great.
 
ci_newman said:
Likewise I'm very happy with the Cruz roofbars I fitted to my car recently - www.roofbox.co.uk
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+1 for roofbox.co.uk.

I can say with confidence the aero bars are worth the extra. Used to get mega whistling on my old cheap bars, but got the atera aero bars and now silent as a mouse. Roofbox was great service and very good price.

I cannot warrant the extra cost for Thule ones. Though Thule bike roof bar rack is very good and good value if you get them from eBay.
 
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