This is probably a long shot, but calling on any Subaru Forester owners out there. I recently purchased a 2023 Wilderness edition and now I'm in need of cross bars for the side rails. I called my dealership's parts department to check on the OEM Aero crossbar set to see if they fit a Wilderness edition and they said yes, but my owner's manual specifically says "Part Number: SOA367010, excludes Wilderness trim."

Anyone have any experience with these crossbars. I had Yakima towers and crossbars on my old car and loved them, but trying to be a bit frugal now."

Thanks in advance.

If you have the side rails and want to be frugal, just use some heavy duty zip ties on a couple 2x4s and you have fully functional canoe racks. I’ve done that on a few trips over the years and it works just fine.

I recently had a similar issue when I sold a Tahoe and bought a Sequoia (both built during W's term in office, BTW). The Thule towers I had would not fit on the larger diameter of the Sequoia side rails. Fortunately, Malone has a tower that fits larger rails and I was able to continue using my 78" Thule bars.

Here's the stripped Malone SteelTop tower with no lock. (It's also sold as part of their roof rack system.) Their fit guide indicates it will fit your vehicle:

Stripped Down Tower (No Locks), SteelTop™ (201-202-203), Single

I made one from 2x4s and some U-bolts just last week the day before I left for a trip. It cost be about $15 total. Easy-on, easy-off. I made them 78" wide to hold two canoes, it worked like a charm. Can't imaging spending hundreds on those fancy racks and crossbars, it's just tubes of aluminum and cheap plastic brackets. If you want frugal but functional, wood is good.

You could go to the dealer and see if they have one you can try. I did that with my car a few years back and it was a match in spite of what I was told previously. Of course it was good the dealer had one in stock...

I've done the 2x4 with u-bolts on our old Sienna when I needed to cartop more than one boat. I splurged for an Inno rack for my old Prius V, and when we needed to use our cartop box on the new Sienna which has rails but no crossbars I got the Inno towers for cars with factory rails. Fits like a glove but not exactly cheap.

Over the years my wife and I have gone through several different cars and trucks that carried our yaks and knooz. We bought a Yakima rack system and just gt new clips or longer bars that worked with the rack system. When my wife bought a new Forester in 2020 with the roof rails we found that Subaru recommended getting Thule bars for the rails on the Subie. So, while I still use the Yakima system on my Silverado, she is pleased with her more updated Thule bars and kayak cradles.