Detachable Tow-bars

[rosemary]

In the April edition of Practical Caravan Magazine in the Caravan Chat Letters section a contributor reported that his Detachable Tow- bar snapped under heavy braking resulting in a serious accident involving multiple cars and injury to people. The Caravan, now with no operable brakes, pushed his car in to on-coming traffic.
His car a Jaguar, model not identified, written off. The writer has towed many thousand of miles in the past with cars fitted with Fixed Tow-bars and this is the first with a Detachable Type Tow-bars.
I also have towed thousands of miles with Fixed Tow-bars on Jaguars but now, like the writer, I have fitted a Detachable Tow-bar to my XF also the first for me.
I can only assume without further detail of the failure,none is provided in the letter, that this failure occurred at the socket where the cast bar which includes the 50mm ball is plugged in, or the casting/ball failed. I'd love to find out.
My question, as is the writers, is :- Is this a one off or has there been other similar incidences with this system that perhaps we as a club are aware of?.

[oldtimer]

Hi David,
I have used detachable tow balls for many years and across several cars without any problems what so ever.

Having fitted each tow bar myself I am satisfied that they are extremely robust and jolly heavy to lift into position for bolting together.

As they are clearly a safety critical item I am sure that they will comply with what ever safety and manufacturing standards are applicable.

In my experience the draw bar across the width of the vehicle is a heavy duty piece of about four inch diameter mild steel tube with quarter inch thick brackets welded to the end for attachment to the vehicle. In my opinion the car could easily be hauled into the air by crane.

I would suggest that the swan neck with ball attached is a forging and not cast. This is equally as heavy duty as the rest of the assembly.

Sadly we do not have an engineers report who has examined the whole installation so our opinions are based on guess work.

Various methods of attaching the ball to the draw bar are employed. In my case the hook snaps in place and secured by a spring loaded ball and when fully home is locked by an internal lock. It is obviously important to ensure the swan neck is correctly installed

One has to wonder if the fitting mechanism was clean, greased and fitted correctly ????

I can assure you I shall loose no sleep over this unfortunate event

Oldtimer

[rosemary]

Hello Oldtimer
Thanks for you swift reply which is certainly reassuring. Your comments reflect my own thoughts having fitted my tow-bar myself I know how robust it is and have towed a few hundred miles with no trepidation. It's a shame no detailed information is available however I think if correct assembly and socket attachment was the order of the day this is a one off incident, and like you I'm not going to worry about it.

[oldtimer]

Happy Caravanning David

Oldtimer