Towbars

[Lons]

Deema has given the technical padding to my suggestions Steve and it's reason I bought a Westfalia for my car including their specific wiring kit. I aslo used a local approved fitting company to supply and fit and they use the Westfalia coding instruments without which my car would have had major issues. The car has its' own trailer electronic stability function apart from the other wizardry.
Westfalia is the bar that Audi fit as standard but they quoted me almost £1100 rather than still substantial £750 I paid however, I have a twin axle trailer with a payload of 2 tonnes and just recently bought a large twin axle caravan with an MTPLM of 1800kg. Your 5 x 3 trailer won't be anywhere near that and won't exert the same sort of loading on your towbar.
If it's prone to rust, you can paint it as long as it's solid and I fitted Towsure bars myself to all 4 of my vans over the years without issues and they did a lot of towing.

The comments are correct about both notifying your car insurance company although mine, Aviva said they cover automatically and about insuring the trailer itself in case of theft or damage.
Also correct about grease on the towbar however I need to grease it for my trailer so the ball doesn't wear excessively and clean it for the caravan which has an Alko hitch.

Not quite correct when it comes to your driving licence. The changes only really affect those who passed their test after Dec 1996 but even then they are allowed to tow as long as the combined weight of vehicle and trailer are no more than 3500kg. It's a bit more complicated than that as further chages for tests from 2013 but all info is on the relevant gov websites.

Your Cee'd and little trailer will be way under that even though I'd guess you passed your test before 1997.

Bob

http://www.towsure.com/catalogsearch/re ... owbar+2014

 

[Steve Maskery]

I've seen my mate Stuart today. He has a Skoda and tows a caravan, as well as a modest trailer. He paid £650, job done on the drive, whereas Skoda wanted £1300. His is detachable, but, as others have said, he never takes it off. It's protection against a slight rear-end shunt, apart from anything else. His wife was shunted in a car park - the offending vehicle went up and over the ball "like two mating dogs" and had to be jacked up to extricate it. (He didn't use the word "mating".) Hers was untouched.
So my quote sounds positively attractive.

 

[paulm]

When we recently wanted to add a tow bar and electrics to my wife's car the local VW dealer quoted a price that was about double that of the independent specialists, on querying that they actually let slip that they outsource the work to an independent and don't even do the work themselves !!!

 

[undergroundhunter]

When we recently wanted to add a tow bar and electrics to my wife's car the local VW dealer quoted a price that was about double that of the independent specialists, on querying that they actually let slip that they outsource the work to an independent and don't even do the work themselves !!!

The towbar electrics fitted in dealer are quite often different from ones fitted by "experts", I work in a VW dealer and have fitted quite a few VW towbar kits, it is really not a simple job and is hugely time consuming (so i can kind of understand why its outsourced). We had a new VW tiguan recently that the customer wanted a towbar fitting to we gave her a price and she took it to a local "towbar" specialist as they were cheaper, the first time she used the towbar to pull their caravan the car went up in smoke at the side of the A1. I have seen the trouble it can cause having a towbar fitted by someone not capable or knowledgeable enough to do the task safely/correctly. I am also aware of instances where the towbar electrics void the warranty on the wiring and associated electrics (if the fault can be traced back to the towbar electrics themselves or the fitment) however with dealer supplied and fitted electrics this is not an issue, this is especially important when you have a 7 year warranty.

Matt

 

[Lons]

When we recently wanted to add a tow bar and electrics to my wife's car the local VW dealer quoted a price that was about double that of the independent specialists, on querying that they actually let slip that they outsource the work to an independent and don't even do the work themselves !!!

The towbar electrics fitted in dealer are quite often different from ones fitted by "experts", I work in a VW dealer and have fitted quite a few VW towbar kits, it is really not a simple job and is hugely time consuming (so i can kind of understand why its outsourced). We had a new VW tiguan recently that the customer wanted a towbar fitting to we gave her a price and she took it to a local "towbar" specialist as they were cheaper, the first time she used the towbar to pull their caravan the car went up in smoke at the side of the A1. I have seen the trouble it can cause having a towbar fitted by someone not capable or knowledgeable enough to do the task safely/correctly. I am also aware of instances where the towbar electrics void the warranty on the wiring and associated electrics (if the fault can be traced back to the towbar electrics themselves or the fitment) however with dealer supplied and fitted electrics this is not an issue, this is especially important when you have a 7 year warranty.

Matt

I would agree with that 100% Matt on a modern vehicle.

In my case both the bar and vehicle specific electrics are Westfalia and exactly the same as the Audi dealer would have fitted. The car was also coded using a Westfalia machine and all done by a major approved specialist company but at a much more competitive price. Clearly all of that influenced my decision.
Towbar was fitted in my drive btw by one fitter and took him less than 2 1/2 hours including the coding. That was on a highly specced A6 avant and similar time for my previous A4 avant and A6 saloon, must be quicker in a workshop with a ramp and warm and dry conditions surely.

However: Main dealer prices are always inflated, after all someone has to pay for the plush premises and free coffee and that's understandable. many customers just pay up without question, others like me are a bit more careful and shop around. A typical example is a first oil service where they give the job to an apprentice at top labour rate and charge out the oil per litre can when it's supplied out of bulk containers.
I have an indepenent german car specialist within reach who charge around £120 instead of the £216 quoted by the main dealers, all genuine parts, service logged on line and complies with the manufacturers warranty conditions. I try to support my main dealer where possible and have always managed a substantial discount by presenting a valid argument. As long as the service record is valid it make not a jot of difference to the car trade in value either in my experience.

My last BMW dealer tried to justify the cost difference by saying "the synthetic oil is expensive", swallowed his words when I told him I could buy the exact same oil in Tesco for £15 for 4 ltrs and promptly reduced the quote by £50.

 

[undergroundhunter]

I completely understand. It will actually take longer to fit in the dealership as most of tge time tge guys fitting them do the odd one or two so dont really develop the speed that a towbar fitter would.
Even though its been fitted by a reputable fitter it could still cause a warranty claim to be declined by the manufacturer as it wasn't fitted within the network or supplied by a dealer. It's in the kia warranty book supplied with the vehicle or it was when I worked for the brand a couple of years back.

Matt

 

[Lons]

I completely understand. It will actually take longer to fit in the dealership as most of tge time tge guys fitting them do the odd one or two so dont really develop the speed that a towbar fitter would.
Even though its been fitted by a reputable fitter it could still cause a warranty claim to be declined by the manufacturer as it wasn't fitted within the network or supplied by a dealer. It's in the kia warranty book supplied with the vehicle or it was when I worked for the brand a couple of years back.

Matt

It would be the last Audi or VW group car I ever bought if that happened Matt, not that it would matter much to them.

As it happens I discussed it with the dealership service manager before I made the decision as I would definitely have had it fitted there before taking delivery if he could have got the cost somewhere near and one of his reasons was exactly what you said about only infrequent fitting experience. he didn't see a problem and knew the company I used, just told me to keep the receipt and all paperwork.
My previous A4 Avant was traded in with the towbar left on and I know sold it on with the bar in place as an approved Audi. At 2 years old and 13000 miles it was still under warranty.

I know the BMW dealer used to farm out the work so that being the case any fitting would not have been "within the network" and they would have a difficult time defending a claim.

Co-incidently I've recently had motormovers fitted to our caravan, dealership wanted £2000 while I had them fitted by a specialist in my drive for £250 cheaper and the dealership gave the same time of fitting reasons



Anyway, never had a problem so far and hopefully it stays that way.

 

[undergroundhunter]

I can't really speak for vw warranty as I'm not that involved anymore but if the fault can be traced back to a non genuine (read supplied by dealer with invoice) then there is a potential for it not to be covered.

 

[Mark A]

Why are things becoming unnecessarily complicated? A towbar is basically a hook bolted to the back of car - why does it need to talk to vehicle's computer?

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[undergroundhunter]

Thints like brake lights done just have an electrical voutage sent to them any more, basic lying they are duty cycled which means the 12v is switched on and off very quickly, because of this you can make the bulb brighter or dimmer just by changing the frequency at with you turn the 12 on and off. This means that manufacturers can use a single filament bulb to take the place of a double filament bulb, this saves weight (less wiring, less actual components) and in the long run saves cost.

Then it's connected to the (in a vw/audi) the convenience can which allows it to turn off things like the rear parking sensors when towing, it's getting even more advanced in that because the vehicle knows you are towing it changed the way the traction control and abs work to a country for 1 the extra load and 2 the way the vehicle reacts whire towing.

Clever stuff.

Matt

 

[Mark A]

Ok, so car companies are simplifying the manufacturing process (and saving themselves a fair bit of money) by compensating with overcomplicated electronics, and calling it beneficial to the car owner?

I like technology, but this strikes me as a way for manufacturers to squeeze an extra thousand or so out of their customers.

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