Towbars

[Guest piperdog]

hello i knew to the forum , but been a galaxy owner for a little while now,ive just sold a 99 ghia and have now got a01 tdi ghia .this is the question,as the 01 has parking sensors will any tow bar do or do i need a detachable ,and is it a fairly basic job to put on as on ebay there only

[Jim]

Towbars on car built after '98 require EC type approved towbars and will require no drilling - the bar will fit manufactrers mount points. This was certainly the case when I fitted a Witter bar to my Passat. Easy enough to do - remove bumper, fit bar, refit bumper and do electrics. I have to check if my Gal has a bulb failure system as extra realys my required, but not too sure on this?

 

Will be fitting a towbar to my Galaxy soon - don't know make yet, but it will be ball & flange. There are other posts regarding parking sensors on the forum, so it looks like towbars can interfere - a problem I will have to try and overcome also. I know someone who has a Bosal towbar on his Alhambra and it looks like the mount for the electriics is lower down on these towbars.

 

Hope that helps

 

Jim

[Guest ianock]

Fit a non-Ford towbar & you run the risk of invalidating your warranty on electrical repairs due to the CAN system & fitment of 'aftermarket' parts.On subject of parking sensors you can get away with it if you angle the electric socket downwards slightly,then again what does it matter if the sensors go wrong as you'll have a caravan behind you!!

 

Anyone else see this......

THE 12 worst second-hand cars on the market have been exposed in a survey of drivers.

 

Almost 33,000 motorists were asked by the Consumers' Association to rate their vehicles for reliability, safety, performance and security.

 

The "dodgy dozen" to avoid are: Citro

[seatkid]

Anyone else see this......

THE 12 worst second-hand cars on the market have been exposed in a survey of drivers.

 

Almost 33,000 motorists were asked by the Consumers' Association to rate their vehicles for reliability, safety, performance and security.

 

The "dodgy dozen" to avoid are: Citro

[handy andy]

Hi

 

I have an actual Ford towbar and fitted it myself to a 02 model.

 

In order to fit the towbar you need to remove the small plastic panels below the rear lights.

This reveals two bolts that need removing along with two in the wheel arch.

 

This allows the rear bumper to be removed.

 

This is necessary to allow access to the open end box section of the chassis. The tow bracket then fits inside the box section of the chassis and bolts fit through predrilled holes and into captive nuts in the tow bracket.

 

The one BIG problem here is that reinforcing metal U section of the bumper fouls on the tow bar and more importantly the holes in the end of the chassis where the towbar fits are completely covered by the bumper supports.

 

It is actually necessary to either get out the cutting and welding gear or buy a new part from Ford which costs

[Guest kd035050]

if any one is interested, the bulb failure system i easy to get working without any fancy bits, the bulb failure system only works on the two main brake lights and does not apply to the high level light, so simply connect your brake light feed o the feed that goes to the high level brake and you are sorted, dont worry about doing this the high level light is from the same circuit as the main brake lights just at a point before the bulb falure relay, so it is fine to do without overloading or shorting anything

[Guest ianock]

As far as the electrics are concerned they have their own set of problems. Firstly they are very easy to fit (The galaxy does not yet use a CAN system to light fittings).

Correct but what is to stop anyone accidently 'breaking' into the CAN wiring when using a aftermarket towbar kit,this is why Ford wont honour related warranty work,plus as you say the Ford kit is a doddle to fit.Also you can get the 12S socket as I have fitted this kit a number of times(i'll look out the instructions when I get the chance)it connects to the power output in rear nearside panel.

From what I can remember( :angry: )the trailer light is not used & if a trailer/caravan indicator bulb fails the tell-tell light in the cluster flashes faster as a warning as legally required,audio or visual warning.

[Jim]

Fit a non-Ford towbar & you run the risk of invalidating your warranty on electrical repairs due to the CAN system & fitment of 'aftermarket' parts.

OK, so it looks like a good idea to disconnect after market electrics prior to a visit to the ford dealer, but they can say nothing about the towbar itself - so long as it is type approved.

 

How much is the Ford kit and would a VW/Seat kit also do?

 

Just had a look at my rear passengers side light connections, there is something looking like a small speaker - is this an audible reley already fitted in the car?

[Guest kd035050]

my car has now just run out of warranty however when still in warranty I itted my on after market electric, and beinn an ex intrument technician this was a very simple and quick proceedure if you know what you are doing, however i do understand that most DIY attempts could leave alot to be desired for example: untidy wiring loom, no flasher relay because there are too many wires, bad electrical connections that either dont work or intermitantly work when you wiggle them, bad connections that cause heat and could go on fire and then you have the wrongly connected wires that blow all fuses when you connect the external lights via the plug.

 

I do understand why you would be worried about the warrenty however if the electrics are fitted by a trainned/compitent fitter there should be no problem. To be honest ford quoed me

[handy andy]

ianock: The power output in the rear nearside panel is a continuous feed and used in the Ford wiring kit as the feed to the 12S for caravan internal lighting. There is no connection for ignition switched feed for fridge. This has to be done using third party parts.

The dash trailer indicator light does work when enabled and flashs in time with the trailer light and doesn't light if a failure.

 

Jim: the little speaker behibd the rear nearside light cluster is for the rear parking sensors.

 

As far as I can see the CAN network is only used between the various control module which you should never really need to be near when fitting a tow bar.

 

Not quite sure why you would prefer connecting to the high level brake light feed instead of the low level brake light feeds as when a trailer or caravan is connected it doesn't really matter if the car brake lights are working or not. As soon as the tariler is disconnected you would then get the bulb failure notification.

[Jim]

Jim: the little speaker behibd the rear nearside light cluster is for the rear parking sensors.

Thanks Andy - minor mystery solved - forgot about parking sensors!

[Guest ianock]

I do understand why you would be worried about the warrenty

Just passing on info I got from good friend in the warranty department,it seems alot of aftermarket items are coming under scrutiny aswell like phone kits/audio systems etc & this question is often asked before alot of warranty work is allowed to be carried out.

 

The power output in the rear nearside panel is a continuous feed and used in the Ford wiring kit as the feed to the 12S for caravan internal lighting. There is no connection for ignition switched feed for fridge. This has to be done using third party parts.

The dash trailer indicator light does work when enabled and flashs in time with the trailer light and doesn't light if a failure

Correct,they're is a 'Y' adaptor in the wiring for the continous feed from the rear power point,however there is also another feed that runs up the near side of the vehicle but I cannot honestly remember where it goes(obviously to a ignition feed)must dig out those instructions!

As far as the dash trailer light is concerned Ford technical told me that the trailer light is not used(again passing this info on,apparently there is a software mis-match?)& the cluster left & right tell-tell lights flash faster if a trailer indicator bulb fails just as it would if one of the vehicles indicator bulb fails.I had a fax sent from Ford technical to confirm this,however this was about 2 years ago so possible the software issue has been resolved? We had a customer who quite rightly complained there was no audible or visual warning when his caravan was hitched up,he also went down the Technical department road & was also sent a letter to confirm this,at the garage he removed a indicator bulb from the caravan & the tell-tell light did flash faster like we expected.