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New Car and Tow Bar

in We've got it down to a T Tue Aug 23, 2016 11:32 am
by Skoderiba •

| 211 Posts

Now that the major birthday is out of the way, licence renewed etc. Thoughts are turning to a new car.
At the moment I have a Skoda Octavia (the 2nd) and I am looking at a Skoda Superb SE 150PS.
My dilemma is, Do I order the car with a factory fitted Towbar? or go to a specialist fitter? Opinions Please.

RE: New Car and Tow Bar

in We've got it down to a T Tue Aug 23, 2016 12:23 pm
by Deeps (deleted)

Personally if the option presents itself to have it factory fitted before delivery I'd go along with that. The extra cost when ordered from the get-go would be negligible I would guess when compared to the savings and inconvenience etc when having an after fit. And don't forget - when fitted at the factory you can rest assured that all the underbody protection will be intact.

RE: New Car and Tow Bar

in We've got it down to a T Tue Aug 23, 2016 1:21 pm
by Pepé Le Pew •

| 2.752 Posts

For what it's worth, I agree with Mr Deeps. Get it factory fitted. It'll all have the same warranty as the car and the things like stability control, traction control, reverse sensor isolation and rear foglight disable will all be properly integrated.

The only thing I'd suggest is to double check with the dealer that the 13 pin wiring has two dedicated connections of a sufficiently heavy gauge cable to both run the fridge and charge your leisure battery while in transit, notwithstanding the fact that you may have a 12v charging booster in the caravan already.

It might seem a silly question to ask because you'd assume that the factory would know what they're doing, but I've read more than one account of some parts of the factory-fit towbar wiring either not being up to snuff or even not there at all.

.

yy-R56kh

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Last edited Tue Aug 23, 2016 1:24 pm | Scroll up

RE: New Car and Tow Bar

in We've got it down to a T Tue Aug 23, 2016 1:37 pm
by Deeps (deleted)

Good points made by Mr. Pepe. To give you an example I had the towbar fitted by my VW dealer (Skoda are also effectively VW anyway) who advised me - after the fact - that VW supply 2 types of wiring harness. One harness comes without the extra wiring and relay required to run the fridge and is the item supplied to dealers when towbar after fit is ordered, whilst the second does indeed come with everything and is only supplied to dealerships upon special order due to all the extra work needed in the fitting.

The reason for this is that the harness minus the necessary wiring for the fridge are snapped in directly to the cars own wiring loom at the rear of the vehicle whilst the second (with the relay) is run to the front of the car to the ignition switch. This means that the relevant cable for the fridge is dead when the engine is not running and therefore the fridge will not run the cars battery flat.

If this is done at the dealer it necessitates panels being removed, possibly seats etc to get the cable from the back to the front of the car and then wired in. This of course is something far more easily achieved during construction of the vehicle at the factory.

My dealer never advised me of this resulting in somewhat of a battle to have fitted what I believed I was ordering in the first place. All settled in my favour in the end but it was trouble I could have done without at the time.

So if you decide to go with the factory fitted option for all the reasons already stated, I would insist that the dealer writes clearly on the vehicle order form that FULL 13-pin electrics are wanted and hang on to a copy. Upon delivery do check of course that you've got what you ordered.

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Last edited Tue Aug 23, 2016 1:39 pm | Scroll up

RE: New Car and Tow Bar

in We've got it down to a T Tue Aug 23, 2016 1:56 pm
by Aaron Calder •

| 3.834 Posts

It might be worth checking that 'factory-fitted' does in fact mean fitted at the factory and not 'fitted by being outsourced to a local contractor by the dealer prior to delivery to the customer.'

I had a Westphalia removable towbar with dedicated Westphalia electrics retro-fitted to my second-hand Audi by a local towbar specialist for £700 with fridge wired as Deeps describes and all the electronic bells and whistles that Pete mentions.

It might be worth getting a quote for the exact work you want doing from a local specialist and comparing it with the factory-fitted price before making a decision.

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2003 Triton 420 and Audi A4 2.0Tfsi S-line SE Cabriolet

Last edited Thu Jul 13, 2017 4:41 pm | Scroll up

RE: New Car and Tow Bar

in We've got it down to a T Tue Aug 23, 2016 2:17 pm
by eribanaut •

| 1.228 Posts

Factory fitted, then if anything goes wrong or doesn't wok properly you don't get two companies blaming each other.
Dave

Citroen C4 auto 1.6 Hdi Troll 552 - 2005

RE: New Car and Tow Bar

in We've got it down to a T Tue Aug 23, 2016 4:45 pm
by Poptop320 •

| 2.634 Posts

Aaron is right, factory fitted doesn't always mean fitted at the factory or by the dealer, my local Suzuki dealer outsources the work to a towbar specialist. Personally I am ok with this policy as I know that the specialist is aware of the car to caravan quirks that many dealers miss...

When I go on holiday I like to pop my top!

RE: New Car and Tow Bar

in We've got it down to a T Tue Aug 23, 2016 5:50 pm
by DBVWT (deleted)

Quoting the above......Aaron is right, factory fitted doesn't always mean fitted at the factory or by the dealer, my local Suzuki dealer outsources the work to a towbar specialist. Personally I am ok with this policy as I know that the specialist is aware of the car to caravan quirks that many dealers miss...

A lot of manufacturers 'factory fit' tow bars are not indeed fitted at the factory but are left to the dealer to outsource to their local fitter.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing as the outsourcing towbar company are often top notch outfits and know more than the actual dealer with regards to the towbar.
Just make sure that towbar/towbar prep is specced on the vehicle at the time of order (13pin wil cover all electrics) and maybe question the dealer before an order is placed.

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Last edited Tue Aug 23, 2016 5:56 pm | Scroll up

RE: New Car and Tow Bar

in We've got it down to a T Tue Aug 23, 2016 10:58 pm
by Pepé Le Pew •

| 2.752 Posts

This thread on the Skoda forum might help. It confirms the last sentence of Mr VWT's post above in that it seems factory (assembly line) towbar preparation does include all the necessary wiring in a full 13 pin connection.

There are loads of posts in various other forums which also appear to confirm that this wasn't always the case, and a supposed factory installation didn't routinely include charging and fridge connections.

I guess the smart money is on pinning the salesman against the wall until he provides incontrovertible proof of what the score really is before comitting to anything.

Although it's been said before, I'd agree that a dealer-fit towbar is likely to be the most expensive option of all, simply because most dealerships don't want the hassle of doing it, and, as Brian amongst others have said, their fitting involves no more than shunting your car off to a local fitter and sticking a colossal mark-up on the bill.

I had an eye-watering quote from an Audi dealership to fit a towbar to my car a few years ago, but was tipped off by a mate who worked in the parts department who told me where all their towbar jobs went. It saved me the thick end of three hundred quid. Three hundred quid extra just for the privilege of having a poncy invoice with four rings at the top?

Not on your nelly.

There are plenty of independent people who will do you a proper, fully-wired and fully integrated retro-fit, and to that end a phone call to PF Jones probably wouldn't be a waste of time, if only to get a comparative price.

.

yy-R56kh

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Last edited Wed Aug 24, 2016 9:36 am | Scroll up

#10

RE: New Car and Tow Bar

in We've got it down to a T Wed Aug 24, 2016 8:37 am
by DBVWT (deleted)

That pretty much sums it up Pepe.
I've recently been through this whole experience with my new Audi A1 in March. It was my Salesman that told me who they outsource the Towbar jobs to and to go direct to save money.
The Towbar fitters were even happy to let me source the Westfalia towbar (as used by Audi themselves) myself and just pay them to fit it. PF Jones couldn't be beaten on price or advice.
The most important thing as mentioned is making sure that full towbar prep is specced on the new order. Without this the job of fitting the Towbar after delivery is much harder/costly. It also means that the cars 'brain' senses when the van is hooked up and enables/disables certain functions automatically (eg..rear parking sensors, auto stop/start, extra engine cooling facility). You may not get this with some non Towbar prepped aftermarket kits that use a simple relay.

Last edited Wed Aug 24, 2016 8:44 am | Scroll up

#11

RE: New Car and Tow Bar

in We've got it down to a T Wed Aug 24, 2016 9:59 am
by Skoderiba •

| 211 Posts

Thanks for the prompt replies:
I'd already decided to have a fixed towbar rather than detachable after an incident in town when I was rear-ended by an idiot who was texting whilst in the traffic queue. No damage at all to me but made a real mess of the front of his Peugeot.
The reason I asked is because the last towbar was dealer fitted. The service manager (a wobbly box owner) and I talked at length about our respective vans and then he went and fitted single electrics. It took months for Skoda UK to sort out.