How difficult is it to fit a towbar?

Rivers & creeks

Rivers & creeks

Well-Known Member
Joined
23 Nov 2004
Messages
10,924
Location
Norfolk
Visit site
The quotes locally here in Bury St Edmunds average £380 supply & fit!!! But I can get a good quality used kit for £50 and a new kit for £120 - so how difficult is it to fit? The car is a BMW 3 series estate and I can't imagine it's that complicated - or am I missing something?
 
It's not too difficult. I fitted one to a Merc C-class a few years ago. Most difficult part if I remember rightly was removing and replacing the rear bumper. It's probably a 2-man job.
 
I don't know about your particular car, but it took me a couple of hours to do my pug 406 estate. That was a used ebay towbar. It helped a lot to buy a new bolt pack from the towbar makers, there were some captive nuts needed.
If you look at the Towsure website, or one of the ones flogging towbars on ebay, you can down load the destructions.
For my latest car, I had a bloke from a trailer place come to my home and fit it for about £180 all in. It's worth phoning around, prices varied a lot.
 
Mechanically fitting- simple, hole positions will probably be marked out already.
Electrics- Can be a lot trickier. some cars come with a socket behind the trim ready to plug into, some don't. With newer cars it can be a lot more involved than just breaking into 7 wires like it used to be.
 
I have first hand experience of fitting a Witter towbar to the last three 3 series estates I have owned. Depending on the model the "hardest" bit is taking a hacksaw to the underside of the bumper. If you're reasonably practical and organised it shouldn't take you more than about 3 hours. I could do it it just over 2 on the 3rd go.

Best advice I can give you is to get a piece of carpet at least as wide as the car to lay the bumper on when you take it off, and don't lose the "impact rams" that you take off to fit the towbar in case you ever want to remove it.

Hopes this helps.
 
Be careful. Fitting the towbar is easy but the electrics can be impossible - all depends on the car.

On Audi VW its an £800 job as the electrics reprogram the anti skid device and the parking sensors. I went cheapskate and accept the ASC will not function properly, rely on a bleep from the rear to know the indicators are working and manually keep cancelling the parking sensors. Was still about £450 IIRC.

I used to fit tow bars and the electrics years ago but I would not tackle the electrics now on a modern "bus" system wired car.
 
Muddy Paws said:
The quotes locally here in Bury St Edmunds average £380 supply & fit!!! But I can get a good quality used kit for £50 and a new kit for £120 - so how difficult is it to fit? The car is a BMW 3 series estate and I can't imagine it's that complicated - or am I missing something?
Click to expand...
I have just been through this on a VW, and at £1mio fitted charge it would be a bargain !
I think I spent 10-15 hours.
See if you can find something on the intenet on your car, as of course cars differ. There was one on an Audi.. the guy ended up with only the steering wheel still on the car ;)
Seriously... getting whole bumper off was reasonably easy, as was removing the rear crash bar. Then in theory you just put the side bars into the purpose built box tubing, put on the rear tow bar, and hey hey, that was easy. Right, well if I had been told it was absolutely essenial to tighten each bolt in rotation, it would have been an idea. And if the second set of instructions had come first, saying 80n/m instead of 130n/n, I might not have ended up with sheared bolts and an angle ginder to cut the whole ****** thing off again.
Anyway, thats the easy bit. Just wait til you get to the wiring. If your car- and I think you can assume yes to this- has any sort of computer, you really need the several hundred pound wiring loom. Only, the short cut is a £30 clever relay that fools the computer, I reckon. So, you will go the relay route. Where is your fused, permanent power source. In the bonnet perhaps.. right.. thats nice and close to your tow bar socket...And dont think cars have a wire to each device anymore.. its all clever stuff where a wire can run to multiple devices and ..err.. voltage change or summit activates the right device. So, now you have to find the right wires and take down side panel, roof linings...and you had better prey nothing is sourced in the tailgate like the fogs. Parking sensors? Oh dear.. Any stability systems.. oops..
Actually, I am led to believe that a non dealer fitter doesnt do all of this. He knows where everything is, which panels he can tuck behind, where to run a wire...and all your clever elctronics can be bi-passed...err if that the idea in having them in the first place!
Anyway, if you have a Tiguan, I reckon I can now do it in a couple of hours...;) thats 13 hours quicker than the first time !
Its is a pig of a job. If the labour is the same as the parts, get them to do it. It is one of those jobs you wished you never ever started, and thats assuming you dont break something..!
 
Last edited:
OLLIE45 said:
Mechanically fitting- simple, hole positions will probably be marked out already.
Electrics- Can be a lot trickier. some cars come with a socket behind the trim ready to plug into, some don't. With newer cars it can be a lot more involved than just breaking into 7 wires like it used to be.
Click to expand...

What OLLIE45 says is correct. The towbar just fits standard chassis mounts, it is the electrics which are more complicated than the old "scotchlock into each wire".

You do not say how old your car is but the more modern the more complex the electronics.

I have fitted several tow bars in the past, but on my latest Golf I got the manufacturers tow bar. It sets the alarm off if anyone unconnects the trailer lights and it is programmed through the ESP to recognise the trailer to prevent snaking.
 
Towbar easy, electrics can be a pain. I fitted a removable hook system from Witter to our Galaxy tow car. It has towed several valuable aircraft across France to Spain and has pulled more than a few trailer loads of rubbish, motorcycles and the occasional dinghy about.

It really amused me when I was fitting it in the driveway and a couple of neighbours walked past and asked what I was up to. When I told them there was a look of amazement and a sharp intake of breath. Except of course when the question was asked by those that had seen me laying a new brick driveway, welding up a workbench, changing a 4*4 differential or building the extension at the front of the house. :)

I'm getting increasingly unpopular with the blokes in the street. Their wives keep asking why they don't do more around the house :D
 
nimbusgb said:
Towbar easy, electrics can be a pain. I fitted a removable hook system from Witter to our Galaxy tow car. It has towed several valuable aircraft across France to Spain and has pulled more than a few trailer loads of rubbish, motorcycles and the occasional dinghy about.

It really amused me when I was fitting it in the driveway and a couple of neighbours walked past and asked what I was up to. When I told them there was a look of amazement and a sharp intake of breath. Except of course when the question was asked by those that had seen me laying a new brick driveway, welding up a workbench, changing a 4*4 differential or building the extension at the front of the house. :)

I'm getting increasingly unpopular with the blokes in the street. Their wives keep asking why they don't do more around the house :D
Click to expand...
Where do you live? ;)
 
Funny, isn't it - a few years back i fitted one to my diesel ZX. The holes in the "chassis" were already there and plugged with plastic caps and there was a multipin socket to plug the electrics into. Mounted the bar in one lunch hour and the electrics the next day.

When I bought the Honda CR-V, I looked at the instructions for the towbar fitter and took it straight to a local workshop. It took them half a day to fit and wire it and that's their job!

Well, that;'s progress. I suggest you bite the bullet if you have the money!

Rob.
 
Thanks for the replies, it's convinced me to bite the painful pro fitting budget! I might get it right but the price for bu**ering it up is too high!

Thanks. Simon
 
I always used to fit my own but on our last normal cars I had it done professionally. Try looking for mobile fitters who come to your home, they are always cheaper and do a great job in my experience. Our last one was happy to come 120 miles to do the job and at his standard rates.
 
Yes, sorry I forgot to say, my 3 series tourings were all E46 models so not overly complicated electrics (scotch locks are fine). However the towbar on my current Audi I had professionally done 'cos the car's 'brain' needs reprogramming or else it gets a strop on and stops working completely!!:eek:

If your 3 series is newer than E46 I would agree with you "biting the bullet!"
 
I sucessfully fitted a removable towbar & electrics to my A4 ('02), took me two days in all to do it including me recoding the cars canbus to enable all the various onboard safety systems etc.

1st day was used up removing the bumper and refitting all the new parts at the rear (and having to lower both exhaust pipes was a pain in order to be able to access some of the mounts)

2nd day was used up routing the cables to the front of the car and recoding the onboard computer to recognise that the tow bar electronics box was then connected.

Results where good however and parking sensors are now automatically disabled when a trailer is detected and proper trailer warning light on dash lights up rather than having to have a nasty buzzer fitted somewhere in the boot.

Could probably do the same job again now in a day but as has already been said it is the wiring that takes the time and it helps that I already have VCDS (dealership level diagnostic and programming software) & previous car electronics skills having installed cruise control and Audi factory sat nav & bluetooth previously.
 
I fitted one to my mk3 Mondeo estate; very easy, the only worrying part was cutting the bumper/ undertray. The mounting holes were already in the chassis rails, even on the ST220 model which is not homologated for towing! I bought a dedicated wiring loom, it just needed some bits of interior trim removing/ refitting to get at the connectors in the loom. There was even a prewired +ve supply there, just needing a fuse inserting in the fusebox.
 
I've done a couple of mk2 & 3 Mondeos, they're a doddle - but beware of second hand tow-bars, they don't always come with all the bits - sometimes half the stuff is left behind on the donor car.

Check out the instructions first as they will tell you what bits you should have & what work is required. Non-computerised electrics are generally pretty simple - if you take it step by step. I made a minor cock-up on one of mine & had trouble sussing it out, but a local caravan repair shop found & fixed the problem in a few minutes & charged a fiver. I was so chuffed I paid them a tenner!
 
emsworthy said:
Yes, sorry I forgot to say, my 3 series tourings were all E46 models so not overly complicated electrics (scotch locks are fine). However the towbar on my current Audi I had professionally done 'cos the car's 'brain' needs reprogramming or else it gets a strop on and stops working completely!!:eek:

If your 3 series is newer than E46 I would agree with you "biting the bullet!"
Click to expand...

yes.. I didnt mention the £140 breakdown tow charge to VW dealership when the damn car would work at all, did I ....
 
I've done about four towbars, but on the last one I just took it to an autoelectrician to wire it up. It cost a bit, but they know what they are doing so saved hassle. The nuts/bolts taking off bumpers bit i can cope with. I bought my last tow bar secondhand but on line instructions from Witter web site helped.

Tim
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top