Towball height in a new car question
I've just gone to pick up my new Hyundai Tucson from the dealer, with fitted towbar.
The height of the tow ball seems rather high at 55cm unloaded.
The dealer stated he didn't know anything about towing, and they had outsourced the fitting.
I'm pulling a small pop up caravan, and my exisying car towball is only 35cm high and this seems to work perfectly.
I've refused to pick up the Hyundai until I get advice....thank you in advance for your comments.
Comments
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Best to get advice directly from the CC technical department but my understanding confirms JVB66's statement.
Given your dealers lack of knowledge and assuming it's a new car not just new to you, I would also check it has the proper dedicated wiring loom not just a clip in type and if the car needs re- programming to tell the car systems the car has a trailer. This is important with a modern car.
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I would say it is too high. Having just changed my tow car I measured the tow bolt height at 450mm (to the centre of the tow ball - not to its top. There is just a little settling of the tow car with the full weight of the hitch at 100 kg which lowers the height to about 425mm. At this height the caravan is just about level, certainly not looking down at the hitch. Before settling under load yours is 100 mm higher than mine which would seem more than any settling of the car suspension will offset. I am towing a heavy twin axle at the max 100 kg hitch allowance which is likely to be more than your pop up model.
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You may be able to use a drop plate:
http://www.towsure.com/towbars-towing-and-trailers/towbar-accessories/drop-plates
But it sounds like it's a poor tow bar, normally for high ground clearance cars like yours they're already adjustable height.
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As above, we have towed with various SUV's, 4x4's & cars over the years and just used a dropper plate when needed.......
The real problem is when the towbar is too low, cos your not supposed to use the "dropper" plate in reverse to raise the towball height....
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If you went through the dealer its the dealers responsibility to make sure it conforms to the regulations, l assume like l you had the dealer to have the tow bar fitted so has not to invalidate the warranty if something went wrong. l have the Hyundai Santa FE which l think is fitted with Westfaila detachable, Not hooked up yet due to the fact it has to do 1200 mile before towing, which l will reach sometime in the next few days, as soon as the weather abates round here l will be hitching up to check the level after seeing this post, already checked the electrics which seemed OK. One thing the SF has is self leveling suspension not sure if the Tucson has, l would still think the tow ball height should be set as whats been said in the posts. Also l would have thought if the tow bar was one of the big two company's Ie Witter or Westfalia etc they are designed to each individual car with the Manufacturers approval
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Re tow ball height does anyone know of car makers who will give you tow ball data. My Van has a hitch height of 415mm if I were to get a car at the bottom limit of 350mm this I think would be to low also some retractable balls seem to be to near the bumper when using an alko hitch .
This is likely to be my last tow car I cannot afford to get it wrong .
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If I was the OP I would try the caravan on the back before rejecting it.
It could be that the backend is soft and will drop enough to level the rig, I find level gives a better tow and slightly down.
You cannot use a drop plate now on most 4x4 type cars, including the Xtrail.
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Which law says that they are illegal? In principle they are not illegal, however to be legal, they need to be type approved with the towbar and this will normally not be the case. One would have to read the information supplied by the towbar manufacturer. If permitted, it will say how thick the drop plate may be and the maximum allowable amount of drop. Obviously, if that isn't stated anywhere it's safe to say that a drop plate may not be used.
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When I got my Navara it came with a flanged towball as opposed to the swan neck that was on my previous one.
The height was at 430mm and to be honest the caravan did sway a little, so much that I went through the process of moving the loading around and playing with different nose weights.
I even considered changing the flanged towbar to a swan neck. On going through the Brink catalogue I checked that I had the right tow ball. It was, but I saw that there was another that was also suitable for the Alko hitch and that was designed to sit lower. With this the height is now 380mm and the towing is rock steady.
The Navara's suspension doesn't drop much at all with the caravan attached, only about 5mm. And the caravan does look like it is raked and not level as before, but the towing is a world away from where it was.
although long winded, my point is make sure that you get it right. There are options out there and the dealer needs to make sure it's fit for your use
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The car manufacturers don't necessarily get involved unless the towbar is factory fitted or offered as a factory approved aftersales accessory item. However, any towbar manufacturer can offer a towbar without the car manufacturer even knowing about it. It's the towbar manufacturer's responsibility to get his product in line with the car maker's specification and the applicable regulations and the towbar manufacturer has to get type approval from the respective type approval authority, not the car maker.
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