Toureg towbar issues
I am considering a 2015 Toureg as my next towcar and the reviews are good. However I understand there are issues with after market towbars being fitted. The car in consideration is an R Line but does not currently have a towbar. Is there a problem or is this old information?
Any thoughts please?
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We have a 66 reg Touareg, so presumably a 2017 model, which we bought, pre registered with only 14 miles on the clock in January 2017.
We asked the dealer to arrange for a tow bar to be fitted, but they did not want to do so, no idea why!
We had one fitted by a tow bar specialist and after a few initial problems with the electrics, it has been fine.
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Thanks for your replies. It was indeed a salesman at VW who indicated the problem along with a few posts on other web sites regarding this particular car with the problem.
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We tend to change our tow car every 3 years and apart from out latest car which has a factory fitted towbar all our other cars have had tow bars "fitted by the dealer" but the dealer only takes them to a local towbar company down the road from us to have them fitted.
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I have a 2015 Treg Escape which was bought new and had the tow bar and electrics fitted by the dealer so as to avoid any warranty problems. The only ‘issue’ of which I am aware is that VW ‘recommend’ that if the vehicle is used for towing, that the cooling fan is upgraded. Enquires with VW revealed that ‘recommend’ means that any towing related warranty issue would not be met by them if the upgrade hadn’t been done. Since yours is well out of warranty, this makes little difference. In the event, I argued that since the Treg was advertised as having. 3.5t towing limit with no mention of it being conditional on the fan upgrade, I got it done for nothing.
There is another potential problem - but it’s not to do with Touareg - but any car fitted with the Euro6 engine and is to do with the fridge not working whilst towing. It’s quite a complex technological problem which I intend raising on here later - when back home and I have access to all the various relevant website links etc. I have recently found out that Knaus - as an example of one manufacturer, do not connect the 12v fridge supply as a means of overcoming what is a potentially more serious problem. More later!
Having said all of that, the Touareg is the best tow car I have owned😃
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I think the fridge not working problem has been around before , it is the smart? alternators that on some model when towing do not read the fridge load .the company who fitted our towbar were aware and had some form of mod that fooled the alternator into taking load ,the original get round was to drive with dipped headlights
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No - it’s not that JVB - it’s to do with the fact that, if the fridge is connected, it completes a circuit which, in effect, can result in the fridge draining the car battery because the alternator NEVER puts out sufficient voltage to overcome the voltage drop through the cables. There’s a fairly long video from Sterling Power, demonstrating exactly what happens which gets quite technical. When I get home and I can cut and paste the relevant links, I will post it on here.
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JVB - you’re obviously more knowledgable than me - when I can find it, I will post the link and would welcome your observations. It’s obviously a promotional video but on the other hand, Sterling are a very reputable company who have been around a long time.
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Apologies to the OP if I have hijacked his post - but, JVB - are you saying that the Treg is perfectly capable of running the fridge when towing - because if that is the case, I will get my dealer to make sure the fridge is connected when it goes in for service in a couple of weeks time.
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We have a 2015 Touareg Escape. I couldn’t find one with a FF tow bar. So had a Westfalia detachable bar fitted by PF Jones who also coded the electrics. No problems with the tow bar except it doesn’t have a loop for the breakaway cable. I am not sure if an R line the bumper has to be cut for the tow bar to fit. It didn’t with the Escape, which is less blingy model. VW also advise that you get the radiator fan upgraded I did and it cost £1000. To be honest I am not sure I would pay that again. I haven’t heard of anyone having a problem with the standard fan.
I find that the Tourareg tows superbly, we tow a 8m 2000kg single axle caravan with it so I think a fair test.0 -
I have towed with a Discovery Sport, Discovery 5 and now a Range Rover Sport all with the Euro 6 diesel engine and fitted with tow bars at the factory. In each case the fridge has worked without any problem so perhaps Landrover deal with it in their wiring spec. Neither did they need any additional cooling fan. When I bought the D/Sport brand new I asked Landrover how long before I could tow a caravan and the reply was straight out of the showroom. There are regular posts on this forum from V.W. Audi and Volvo owners all asking for help to resolve problems when preparing for towing which seems disappointing given that they make fine SUVs.
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Same here, not had a problem with wiring on any of my Land Rovers including Euro 6 diesels. As for cooling it just shows the penny pinching of some of the German marques if they are sailing that close to the wind with cooling specs and not providing wiring to ISO specifications.
At the end of the day Land Rovers are designed and equipped for towing from the outset.
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JLR apologists are fortunately easily identifiable by their rose tinted glasses and short memories
http://www.disco3.co.uk/forum/detachable-towbar-recall-153957.html
other links are available btw
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
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I am sure we can all rake up occasional design faults for every make of vehicle if we try however Discovery 3 production ceased 11 years ago, I am referring to the ongoing failure by certain vehicle importers to supply vehicles to the correct international wiring standards or supplying so called SUV's with a cooling system so borderline that it needs to be upgraded in order to tow a caravan for example.
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The tow Ball issue affected more than the Disco 3 and wasn’t resolved in 2009, as I assume Vulcan knows
Getting back to the Touareg. I honestly don’t know if the fridge works on 12v I have simply never checked. The first SUV we had was a pajero and spent endless hours getting the fridge to work on 12v. We then had a Land cruiser for 9 years and never checked the fridge so I have never checked the fridge on the Touareg and this has never been a problem.Regarding the cooling fan. The factory fitted tow bar should come with the upgraded fan. And I agree it is penny pinching not to fit one as standard. I suspect that the vast majority of Touareg’s, with after market towbars fitted won’t have the upgraded fan. I chose to pay for one and on reflection I am not sure that they are necessary for towing a caravan. I am not aware of the lower rated fan causing a problem and that includes vehicles with FF towbars which were supplied in error with the lower rated fan.
All vehicles have faults and a big fault on a big car is going to be expensive. The only fault we have had was a rear door lock fail. VW wanted close to £1000 to replace. I bought a scrap lock online and the correct tools and with the help of YouTube fixed it for less than £100. It tows a 2T caravan very well. I am sure a Discovery or a Mercedes or a BMW would also do it as well. But one of the reasons we bought a Touareg was it doesn’t carry a large badge premium.
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@ Boff I am not aware of the lower rated fan causing a problem and
I suspect that in our generally cool climate a standard fan would be sufficient, maybe if we were towing somewhere hotter it might be a problem.
The only fault we have had was a rear door lock fail. VW wanted close to £1000 to replace. I bought a scrap lock online and the correct tools and with the help of YouTube fixed it for less than £100.
Brilliant! 👍👍🙂
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We had the problem that our van battery was not being charged properly when towing, and fridge running was intermittent. I put an old laptop in the van and wired it up to monitor the voltage from the car to confirm the problem.
As we have a large twin axle, we need the mover to work, and it was running out of battery power on arrival on site or at home, as not being charged enough en route.
I fitted a Sterling Battery to Battery charger unit 3 years back and it has solved the problem.
You can set it up to give priority to the fridge or the battery, I have left it on battery priority which is the default set up.
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It's a sad fact that some (particularly German) car manufacturers do not provide tow bars suitable for the UK market i.e. that include the required 9-10 pin fridge circuit. Both my previous Audi S4 Avant and current Porsche Cayenne needed aftermarket tow electrics upgrades despite being fitted with expensive factory fitted tow bars.
Now to the further issue of fridge operation and Euro6 smart alternator problems. As pointed out by Sterling Power some Euro6 vehicles with smart alternators/braking regeneration can result in insufficient voltage being supplied to invoke proper operation of the fridge circuit even if fitted (and indeed may even result in back feeding that can drain the caravan leisure battery!). However this is not always a problem and I've sufficiently investigated my Porsche to be fairly confident that I don't have a tow vehicle problem and it provides an adequate stable voltage on the tow circuits. I haven't yet experienced any issues with the leisure battery not being charged whilst towing. The fridge issue turns out to be that my Knaus caravan fridge is actually not wired to run off 12v despite being a 3-way fridge that is used in many caravans. This is bizarre to me and I can only guess that Knaus have taken this decision (despite it supposedly being their van designed specifically for the UK market) because on the continent they tend not to expect/supply fridges using 12v whilst towing and because of the potential Euro6 12v supply issue.
I've informed my supplying dealer that I bought a new (expensive top of the range) caravan with a 3-way fridge and I expect it to work on all 3 power sources as designed. I am currently awaiting their response.
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Mine is 2015 and I had a Westfalia towbar and electrics fitted by Professional Retrofits in Nuneaton last year after I bought it. Brilliant job and c£500 cheaper than most of the better known fitters. Price included all coding plus fridge feed which is an extra when using the dedicated electrics pack for the car.
Towbars don't fit on an R Line Plus as they have different shaped bumpers to the R Line and don't have the clearance for the Alko hitches. Don't believe the Plus was around in 2015 mind.
VW state the cooling fan should be upgraded to a 850W unit. Had mine done to retain the VW warranty in case of any problems, though don't believe it is needed for towing any caravan in Europe and costs c£1,000 dependent where you go. Beware buying the 850W fan from the likes of eBay as any new ones are not OEM fans and all appear to be either 600W of have the fan blades of the 600W OEM fan not the wider blades of the 850W model.
Car is a brilliant tug and I love it.
Check out the myTreg forums for more on the cars and towbar fitting
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My Euro6, 2015 Touareg was fitted with a separate fridge feed and my fridge works when towing, don't get either caravan or car battery going flat and basically it all just works. Don't know if any form of magic box or some sort of relay was used but the end result is "it all works"
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