Ah, so it might be faulty installation of the towbar electronics, rather than a problem with any caravan installation.

Of course if it's a recent caravan then it will have 12V from the caravan battery whenever its switched on in order to power the interior light and controls, only it won't drive the 12V element as that's a different circuit.

Our local Skoda dealerships sub contract towbar fitting to a very highly regarded specialist towbar fitting company.

Totally facetious answer to #3 as to how easy it is to remove the fridge and how flexible the gas connection is. When our Triton was flipped over by the mad German lady on the Autobahn the fridge parked itself in the wardrobe. The gas was still connected but the fridge was the other side of the van. I’m therefore assuming, maybe wrongly, that it’s not that difficult to remove and the gas connection is fairly flexible. I don’t however recommend inverting the entire Eriba 😁

Happily not many Eriba owners go to such drastic lengths to remove their fridge but there seems to be a trend towards ripping out the fridge, when often it's just not necessary and can lead to worse problem if it goes pear shaped.

There was a classic case on CT a few weeks back. A WWB owner asked the forum for advice because his fridge wasn't working on 240V and he was going on holiday in 5 days time. All the usual suspect (mostly very, very experienced) piled in and suggested all the things he needed to do to check what might be wrong. However the response was that the OP had done none of the checks but had ordered a replacement fridge at a cost of £800. The CT crowd were aghast at such a potential waste of such a large sum of money but the OP powered on.

The next thing was a query about how to remove certain bits of trim around the fridge which were obstructing removal. Then a further post asking how to remove a front window as the fridge was too large to go through the caravan door. A day or so later the OP posted that the new fridge was in place, but that the connectors and wires were all different to his original fridge and he was waiting for someone to come and connect it. In the meantime he'd cancelled the family holiday.

A couple of days later he posted that the fridge was fitted and connected but 240V still didn't work.

He's not posted since.

I am interested in your comment, my towbar and electrics were dealer fitted, and coming more to the conclusion that is where my problem is.

It is not unknown for car dealerships to fit a towbar with just the electrical connections as if for a trailer i.e. side/brake and indicator lights and when challenged that there is no charger or fridge connection their excuse is that the customer didn't specify it. So if the fridge has never worked on 12V it needs to be checked that the fridge pins are live.

I originally thought (foolishly) that the best plan would be to get a Ford dealer to fit the official Ford tow bar which was being pushed on a special offer at the time. None of my local Ford dealers would touch it, saying that they were independent companies with a Ford affiliation and didn’t necessarily supply all of the Ford options. The best answer I got was from one dealer who said that they were not experts with tow bars and gave me the details of the fitter they subcontract all their work to. He came to our house to fit it, and was brilliant. Everything worked as expected.

I have solved the problem, well not quite solved but I do know the answer. For Skoda factory/dealer fitted tow bars on Yetis and perhaps other models a split charging system for fridge and internal lights is not installed hence the reason the fridge doesn’t work when in transit. My dealership reccommends going to a specialist towbar installer and ask if additional circuit/s can be installed but wait until the towbar/vehicle is out of warranty as that can be affected if modifications are carried out.

That's disappointing of Skoda. Currently they say you must have the factory fit tow bar preparation to be able to tow legally. That costs £190. I was hoping that would at least do the fridge wiring. Now it appears you will still have to pay for the more expensive electrics to be fitted.

Apparently tow bar prep. on Skodas is the running of two cables to the rear of the car so that tails from the tow bar can be plugged in. In some territories they increase cooling capacity too, but not the UK. I can't see why they have decided not to include GTW on car's without those cables as it's been acceptable for decades. So what's changed?

I wonder if it's something to do with manufacturers using a common chassis for both fossil and electric fuel variants. They may be reluctant to homologate some electric cars as the reduced range, when towing, is bad for their image.

I wasn’t offered more expensive electrics, Skoda just don’t have the wiring loom to provide a supply to the fridge contacts in the socket.

Skoda recommend changing the cooling fans to give increased engine cooling when towing.

The UK towing preparation doesn't include upgraded cooling as it's considered unnecessary in this territory. In some countries it is fitted as part of a more expensive prep pack.

Quote: Steve and Debbie wrote in post #25

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I wonder if it's something to do with manufacturers using a common chassis for both fossil and electric fuel variants. They may be reluctant to homologate some electric cars as the reduced range, when towing, is bad for their image.

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