I haven't seen anybody try this yet.
It's a pretty common practice to reduce rack noise by spiral wrapping cord around the leading cross bar. The spirals are spaced out but play around with that. On my not-GX vehicle the spirals are a couple inches apart and it eliminated my rack noise...
Have narrowed our Highlander replacement down to 4 choices:
a new GX550,
Gen 6 4R when avail
Gen 5 4R Limited,
Land Cruiser.
Want full time 4WD and higher clearance than the HL. Expecting a lot of comfy highway miles interrupted by gravel roads after we reach our destination.
So am...