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But my buzzrack quattro weighs 14kg, giving me 32kg for 4 bikes, two of which are childrens bikes........
Depends what your bikes weigh, 32kg still isn't much for 4 bikes.
And it's still a lot more than a sensibly reduced nose weight for bike racks. You don't need to be over weight, it could fail for being an unsafe load.
All I'm saying is:
a) I wouldn't do it, I don't think it's safe in terms of car handling.
b) At best you're under the legal limit (but that doesn't make it sensible), more likely you're over it unless your bikes are very light.
As I said, two of the bikes are childrens bikes, so are quite light (6 or 7kg) I've never found the handling to be affected, but I wouldn't want to load it up with four heavy downhill bikes.
For those with a Witter rack, when mounting the rack on the tow bar do you get a positive click from the mount? Just tried ours on the van and it doesn't click - is that ok? I can't quite work out if it's secure or not.
grumpysculler - Member
If a vehicle is not type approved for towing then you cannot purchase a type approved tow bar. This applies to all cars after a certain date (long enough ago that few cars aren't caught by it).If you can buy a type approved tow bar, you can legally tow. It isn't legal to fit a tow bar that isn't type approved.
You will not find a legit Ford Ka tow bar anywhere. Ford did not include towing on its type approval. There are one or two other cars in the same boat.
There will be a towing limit in the handbook for most cars, max gross train weight is on the car's plate. Subtract the max GVW (also on the plate) and you get the towing limit.
This is sort of true, but there are some special cases.
For example, none of the Renaultsport (172/182) range of mk2 clios are homologated for towing/having a towbar fitted. The rest of the range are. So a 60bhp 1.2 8v is legal for towing, a 180bhp 2.0 16V is not.
You can therefore buy a fully legal type approved towbar for a non-RS mk2 clio and since the shell is exactly the same, you can fit it straight onto an RS (although commercial fitters should of course refuse)
The legality of this is questionable of course. If you have no trailing wheels on the ground then you're not actually towing anything. I'd argue a towbar mounted rack is equivalent to a bootlid strap on or universal roof bar mounted rack.
Did we agree on what is the best quality/value option? I'm getting the tow bar fitted next week, so will get one ordered if I decide what one to buy!!
Halfords/decathlon own ones to be avoided?