Finding a reliable towbar fitter
Hi.Ive bought a new towcar and need to have a towbar fitted. How do I find a reliable company, choose the best towbar for my vehicle (Freelander 2) and know what is a fair price. Can anyone give me some advice. Thank you.
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My advice on this is firstly dont take it to a dealer as they will charge the earth to fit one and in many cases they will get a specialist in to do the job,pay him and then charge you three times as much (believe me i,ve seen it done).Get on the nett and
find a good locol towbar fitter who will do the job on your drive way at your convenience.Prices can vary but you should be paying less than £300 IMO.A dealer wanted to charge me £800 over 8 years ago for one
instead a locol guy did the job for £230 at my house.Fitting towbars is not rocket science and there are plenty of people who
specialise in that sort of work.As regards make mine is a Witter detachable towbar and i,ve never had any problems.Shop around before you part with your hard earned
peter.
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Fitting towbars may not be rocket science but getting the electrics right is heading on that way. I have read so many posts on here from people with problems to be put right in that respect.
My own local Land Rover main dealer used to contract the work out but now does it in house - he says "we know how to get the electrics right". He charged me £351 + VAT for supply and fit towbar and 13 pin electrics
to a Freelander2. I know I could have got it cheaper, but it works, as he said.0 -
Try looking at Towbar express which is a mobile outfit. As V9 says it isn't rocket science but you do need to get the electrics to work properly for you outfit.
They could give you a quote which would give you an idea of costs.
Write your comments here...Another vote for Towbar express used them twice good service both times.
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Its not possible to recommend a fitter in my opinion unless we are actually talking about a particular person.
The towbar industry has a high turn round with fitters, in all the years i've used a NTTA towbar company i have yet to see the same fitter every 4.5 years when i generally change the car, only the foreman has been the same person, and they don't do the fitting.
And over the very long time i've used the company i've twice had a towbar come loose, once on a Xtrail and another on a CX-5.
Try and get a recommendation for a particular fitter.
However one advantage using a main dealer is you shouldn't have issues claiming anything on warranty.
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Have you asked the dealer you are buying the car from? Our Ford main dealer recommended a local independent specialist who did do a cracking job. In fact he fitted one towbar/electrics to my Kuga and when I swapped it 12 month later (too good a deal to miss!)
for another Kuga he took it off and refitted it mega cheap!0 -
We checked the Witter site and they have approved fitters as do most other makers. I would avoid manufacturers towbars as they tend to be the minimum standard and will not have the fridge wiring or the clearance for an ALKO hitch. Most towbar fitters will
check your requirements with you and fit what you need.0 -
I would just say that you need to be careful with independant fitters. Not all will be able to access all the necessary car electronics.
You might end up with one that works the caravan lights, but will it turn off the car reversing lights and reversing sensors when connected, will it turn off the car fog lights and dim the car rear lights to avoid dazzle, will
you end up with an annoying buzzer to tell you that the indicators work rather than use an in-built secondary set of indicator lights on the car dash and will the fridge work when towing?0 -
But not all cars are the same Ian, while I mostly agree with you,the rear fog on my Merc is turned off via a simple switch in the side of the 13 pin socket on the car ie not via electrickery and my car uses the normal tell tale for the indicators and tells
you of a failed trailer indicator by a double flash of the car's tell tale .... I just have to turn my parking sensors off by hand, no idea if it's possible to use electrickery to do it for me0 -
It is difficult to recomend a tow bar fitter. My first tow bar was fitted by one of the big name indipendants. Guy was quick and efficient, but I was not happy with the refitting of the rear bumper, so took it all apart again and re-did it myself.
Like someone said, it's not rocket science.
Since then I have used a really reliable fitter... me.
Done it all myself on the last two cars, appreciate that not everyone has the time or tools. Electrics are not that dificult, but the last one took a little thinking about.
Latest car has LED rear light clusters, but 30 minutes on Google had it sorted.Of course I can't do any coding required for the CANBUS elec-trickery, but the car must have had an element of pre-coding as the rear fog light deactivated automatically, but the rear parktronic didn't. Okay, just turned
it off at the switch. Everything else worked.Anyway, Mercedes picked up the full re-coding at the first service, no charge.
Only advice I could give the OP is, talk to a local fitter, ask if he has done one on your model of car before, and make sure he uses a dedicated wiring kit.
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It is difficult to recomend a tow bar fitter. My first tow bar was fitted by one of the big name indipendants. Guy was quick and efficient, but I was not happy with .......
Due to time contraints I asked a local towbar fitter to alter the 12N to a 13 pin socket to my then 'new' R Class. The **** drilled my car to earth his wiring when there was an earth stud 18" away. I was less than happy & went back & told him so. He was
adamant that he was correct in doing what he did, whilst I was adamant that he was a city banker. Though he had done a few jobs for me on various cars over the years, that was the last time I ever set foot in the place & hell will freeze over before I go there
again. NTTA were less than useless when I complained.0
