13 pin plug realignment problem
Hi, can anyone help.We have just picked up a new lunar caravan last week, the van we had before was a Elddis . When we went to hook up the 13 pin plug it would not go in so the salesman told us to buy a realignment gadget. He used the gadget , it worked and we came home. My husband tried to hook up the plug yesterday and no matter what we do we cannot get the plug to fit and the gadget doesn't seem to be working either. what are we doing wrong and can anyone help
many thanks
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Seems a bit much to buy a new caravan and then be told to go and buy a £3 realignment tool. Surely they could have provided one, given the "n" thousand pounds you had just spent. Ours certainly came with one. However, like MM I have never needed it for hitching up. I always make sure I fully rotate the 90 degs and store it in the holder.
I did utilise it the other day ( first time in four years) when I attached a new 13pin plug, due to contact problems.
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MM, no need to be touchy! It would be essential if you found that somehow at 6 am on a small site in France, you the only caravan there, and your connector had become out of alignment. Happened to me once few years ago and, yes, I do know that you need to fully rotate before disconnecting. In Italy a couple of years ago I was able to help a Brit whose connector was out of alignment and he did not have the gadget! Also last week after a mobile engineer had serviced my caravan the next day I needed to reset the connector - so yes, in my opinion, a pretty essential bit of kit. Agree with you Steve mighty stingy of the dealer not to provide one on purchase.
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thanks for all your replies.
My husband tried to turn both anti clock wise and then clock wise when it still would not fit into socket. We are worried that if we twist the correction plug to hard we might snap something. We never had any problems with our other van , we didn't t know this gadget existed until we got the new van. will we need to do this each time we go to hook the pin up ?.
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We got one free with our Swift caravan.
Off topic but does anyone else think this is a flaw in the design? It seemed to be happening a lot, or enough times that people post about it, to people and it certainly didn't happen with the old 7 pin plugs.
I can see that it's due to the rotation needed to lock the plug in place but was this necessary? In using the old 7 pin for 19 years they only came out once as (I think) I inadvertently went behind the jockey wheel with the cable. It just pulled out cleanly and while the outer casing was broken the wires were undamaged enough to still be put back in and held with duct tape and the lights worked. What would happen if that were to happen when these 13 pin plugs are locked in place?
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All you need is a flat bladed screwdriver , there's a number of short videos on Youtube that explain how to realign said plug/pins in 2 mins.
Pretty simple really .👍
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Should not happen if fully rotated prior to removal. A few years ago a chap was having the same problem. I used a green device to sort it and then demonstrated several times how to connect and disconnect. He tried several times and each time I had to realign it for him
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My dealer changed the connector for a different one. The new connector has a sleeve on the outside which engages the lugs on the car socket. All I have to do is plug the 13 pin plug into the socket on the car and then turn the sleeve to lock it onto the car. No faffing about with green gadgets or screwdrivers.
The pins never get out of alignment because they never need to move. Unfortunately I don't know what it's called but if I've got one they must be obtainable.
It was fitted free of charge. It works every time. Happy days😀
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It is essential beleive me , we have had our Barcelone 5 years and a couple of months ago after getting packed and ready parked outside our home came to plug in and no matter what we tried the plug would not line up then I rembered the salesman giving us the gadget and saying one day you will need this and how right he was , without it we would not have been travelling so my advise to you would be get yourself to the caravan dealer and buy one they are a couple of pounds and worth every penny.
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I too fit the green cap on every time I disconnect the plug from the car. Never have a problem now!!
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I don't know why people are getting so prickly over such a small item. Use one or don't, it matters not.
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Only ever had vans with N & S plugs. Sounds like poor design to me. It should be "plonker proof".
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Agree with ''M', have used the 13 pin for a number of years and if turned anti clockwise the full 90 degrees before extracting, then there should be no need of this green thingy. Mine does move easily when turning until the last where a little more effort is required until it reaches the stop.
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Got a blue alignment tool with the caravan.
Was told of this issue by friends.
Lives in the crate in the car boot with all the other essentials like battery drill for steadies, plastic blocks for under the steadies if required, wheel lock, hitch lock.
Used twice. Yesterday as leaving Black Knowl. Realised pins misaligned, reached into said crate, re-aligned pins, plugged in and orf we popped.
Both occasions after a night of thunderstorms
so can only surmise its the electrickery in the skies wot does shift the pins 
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On my 2017 Swift it's the plug that is A poor design and the pins can easily Move and mis align no matter how careful you are wiTh this particular design of plug. The little Green plug works well, one in the Caravan box of bits and a spare in the boot!! Every time I had trouble as you would expect was peeing dOwn normally knee deep!! Beats Trying to twist the pins with two pairs of pliers, a screwdriver all the time trying to keep the rain of my glasses. Mine came from Amazon
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I think its probably more to do with the ease of access to the socket on the car. I have used mine on two different ML's.. The first one had a dealer fitted tow bar. The socket was very difficult to see, quite concealed, but at least facing towards you. The plug was relatively easy to turn once you located the socket.
The newer car has a factory fitted tow bar that springs out when a button is pushed on the tail gate. The socket is integral with the tow hitch itself, BUT it faces not towards you, but at 90 degrees, i.e. towards the nearside of the car. With this new and seemingly better tow bar I have had several instances of socket misalignment, and as a result have often needed to resort to the green tool. It is clearly down to me not disconnecting properly, and pulling the caravan socket out of the car one before completing the turning motion. The turning action is made more difficult by the closeness of the car bodywork, you actually have to risk skinning the back of your hand whilst doing it! I agree bad design, it should not let you do that!
TF
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We had a similar "problem" with the socket on our last car it was underneath the car and difficult to access (it was a cases of kneeling),but the tow bar fitted to our latest car the socket is near the hook pointing to the rear the plug is easy to insert and turn
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ours is a bit like that, it swivels down by 90 degrees from underneath the bumper, I have to then kneel quite low and push the last mm of the bumper out of the way while pushing the plug in. It was factory fitted as well. The old 7 pin plugs were far easier IMHO
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