I’m in the market for a tow bar fitting to my car so I can do away with the need of roof mounting bikes. The roof will be much better used for roof boxes when on extended holidays camping. So I’m going to contact various local (Aberdeen) garages/fitters for prices.

I’m after a detachable one so only need it in place when I have all the bikes loaded up. Is there any particular make or style I should consider before going with a place for fitting?

Cheers.

If it’s a VAG group car then I’d pick a Westfalia with the proper vehicle-specific wiring kit that includes the control module (if required).

Thanks. Yes it’s a VAG group car (Q5) so want the parking sensors etc all working normally.

Don’t think the sensors will work when rack is on. Hopefully there is a button in yours to turn off the constant beep as the car thinks you’re reversing into a bike rack full of bikes.

I’ve had a Thule and Witter one on two cars (both 3 series) and they were removable swan neck. Think one was £350 and the other £370 fitted. Simple 7 pin electrics from memory. That was in County Durham. Both have been fine – no issues.

Detachble Westfalia through PF Jones mobile fitting in Perthshire. Not sure they’ll travel to Aberdeenshire but worth a punt. I’ve got the proper wiring kit (A6 estate) and I need to manually switch off the reversing sensors with the rack on.

If the car brain is properly updated it will know when there are electronics plugged in to the tow bar and automatically disable the rear sensors for you.

Mines a fixed swan neck witter (Skoda) with a specific wiring kit.

If the car brain is properly updated it will know when there are electronics plugged in to the tow bar and automatically disable the rear sensors for you.

Indeed. Allowing you to reverse until you hear the parking sensor (that never comes) or a crunchy sound.

Leaving them on a constant whine reminds you – and it’s only for 30 seconds or so.

Definitely, definitely get the Westfalia and their dedicated electrics. A skoda Dealer fitted a witter and some generic canbus loom to my old yeti, effectively lobotomising the car, requiring a new body computer and loom.

Skoda invalidated the entire electrical warranty on the car until the dealer put it back to standard / fitted the proper oem kit.

Getting the ‘proper’ wiring kit is a very expensive way to turn off the parking sensors. In theory and on some cars maybe they might also adjust the operation of the traction control or ABS but again you can counter that by just driving sensibly. I’ve always had aftermarket electrics installed and they’ve always worked perfectly fine…no issues whatsoever. My aftermarket wiring kit cost about £40. My brother got the proper Audi kit installed which cost about £200 then he had to go to the Audi dealer and get the system updated with new software to enable the kit which cost another not unsubstantial sum of money maybe in the £150 region. All a bit pointless and offers up little or no benefit in my opinion.

But for my SMax I went with Whitter swan neck detachable system, and my current T5 I’ve gone with a Westfalia detachable system, both invisible when not installed which his what I wanted. Some detachable systems require a cut to be made into the rear bumper or valance which can be seen when the tow bar is not fitted, so look out for these, but the ones I used were a little bit more expensive but didn’t require any cutting of bumpers.

If your car is within the original warranty you may want to get the official kit (which will be Westfalia) fitted by the dealer otherwise you may have warranty issues if anything goes wrong.

Costs a bit more but safer – your dealer may even price match.

Last week i took delivery of a new VW Tiguan and immediately took it from the dealership to get a witter bolt on towbar fitted along with a 7pin light board socket for use with a bike rack, it won’t be used for towing anything (plyline carlisle £410), i was going to get the dealer to fit a VW towbar but the 4 figure cost put me off so the salesperson recommended me to go to plyline. If the dealer recommend it then i see no issue with any warranty.

My rear camera/parking sensors work just fine with the thule 970 towbar and bike attached apart from a beep when reversing, you can still view the rear of the vehicle on the screen exactly as you could before and there’s no other issues at all, obviously you can turn off the rear parking sensors with a button on the centre console but they work fine.

At a 3rd of the vw price i’ll put up with the occasional beep when reversing.

Westphalia fitted on my Passat too. Can’t speak for sensors as it doesn’t have them. Slightly annoyed that having electrics plugged in disables stop/start.

I had a Westfalia detachable fitted by PF Jones on my Jeep. Great service.

Cheers guys. So think I’ve decided on a Westfalia detachable tow bar as it requires no cut to the bumper and generally seem best regarded. I’m starting to get some (local) prices in which are around the £700-800 mark which includes the correct wiring kit.

While shopping around I stumbled on the PF Jones website which was really helpful to help me decide what I want (with pictures) so that’s great. I could get parts only from PF Jones for £335 but certainly not capable of doing it myself so will see if they can fit this far north and what the ‘Aberdeen uplift’ will be.
https://www.pfjones.co.uk/audi-q5-2008-2017-westfalia-detachable-towbar.html

Cheers Shark, I still have 1 year manufacturer warranty on the car so will contact them to see what they say.

OP. Keep us posted on how you get on. I am in the same boat. Aberdeenshire with new Skoda. Need tow bar. Not shopped around yet.
I had an old skoda with tower so already had the rack etc
thanks

Just paid £425 for a TowTrust detachable with dedicated wiring and programming on a Q2. Usually have Westfalia but the Guy was pushing Towtrust and all reviews seemed good. Not all fitters can programme, watch for this because those that can, do it in 5 minutes so its a freeby. Those that don’t programme you are at the mercy of Audi so a minimum of £75.

Audi factory bars are Westfalia but any bar that is CE marked/Type approved can be fitted with no Warranty issues. Keep the old crash beam in case you want to remove the towbar in the future, some fitters will take these crash beams away and ebay them for around £35-£40 as these are damaged in all but the mildest rear end shunt so are readily saleable.

Having had Westfalia (4) and Towtrust (1) I would say i prefer the Towtrust. Easier on and off and a proper key.

If you intend to do serious towing, clarify that the programming includes enabling the relevant changes for big loads. If its just a bikerack or small trailer then the basics should suffice (secondary turn indication on the dash, bulb fault indication on the dash, inhibit rear sensors).

Oh and if your rack or trailer has LED lights then they MAY not be detected by the car when plugged in and the car programming mods will not kick in. Old school bulb lights are readily detected.

I’m starting to get some (local) prices in which are around the £700-800 mark which includes the correct wiring kit.

Mine was just over £500 last year!

I went for a detachable TT with ALG towbars on my Mondeo (I’m near Drumoak). I’ve been happy enough with the fitting, they came and did it on my drive.

Evening. So I contacted Audi for a price and their quote was £1,350 for a tilting towbar which clearly I’ve discounted..

PFJones don’t travel this far north but have found someone local (ALG, cheers Mat) who will fit the Westfalia detachable one with 7 pin wiring for about £530 all in. Seems pretty good so just need to give them a buzz tomorrow to confirm everything.

This is only for bike transportation so no need for heavy towing etc but is there anything I need to ask in particular? Can I assume if it’s fitting the towbar I want with 7 pin electrics that it or do they need to do anything else like programming etc?

Cheers guys.

Sure you want 7 pin? Atera and thule racks all come with 13 pin, which gives you a proper reversing light on the rack. They’re also much sturdier.

Check that they can code it and they are using the proper wiring kit. When connected, my car greys out the efficiency driving option and shows a graphic of the trailer on the screen. Make sure you are getting that before paying for it.

(secondary turn indication on the dash, bulb fault indication on the dash, inhibit rear sensors)

the aftermarket universal looms have a quiet buzzer to indicate the secondary turn indication. No buzz and there is a problem – bulb outage or not commected properly.

Check that they can code it and they are using the proper wiring kit. When connected, my car greys out the efficiency driving option and shows a graphic of the trailer on the screen. Make sure you are getting that before paying for it.

This is what you need to be wary of with the OEM looms so do your research beforehand. A fitter can fit it but might not be able to re-programme the cars systems to enable it. Some cars they can, some they can’t. In my brothers case they couldn’t (Audi A6) and he had to take it to Audi to get it done. Ends up making an already very expensive job into an eye-wateringly expensive job. For my brothers A6 he ended up paying just as much for the OEM loom plus re-programming as he did for the tow bar kit, which for what it offers…like pretty pictures on the dash and stuff like that, it doesn’t really seem worth it to me unless maybe you’re towing all the time. I think safety is not an issue at all in this.

Depends whether you want it done “properly” or not – if there’s a kit that offers full OEM integration then that’s always my preferred choice personally.

When I asked Audi for a quote for a towbar for my wife’s A6, to maintain the warranty, they told me they had to replace the cooling fans with upgraded fans to cope with the additional loads from towing – as others have said eye watering.

I’m not sure what ALG did for me I’m afraid. I got 13-pin electrics for my atera strada rack and there’s a different beep tone when I indicate and a solid tone when I put it in reverse (which I like as it reminds me I’ve got the rack). I’ve got a 10yo Mondeo though (bar fitted 18 months ago) so I’m in a slightly different boat to you I guess.

In my brothers case they couldn’t (Audi A6) and he had to take it to Audi to get it done. Ends up making an already very expensive job into an eye-wateringly expensive job.

That’s outrageous. There’s 3, perhaps 4 bits need setting in VCDS on all vag cars. It takes all of 2 minutes. Smells of a haphazard car sparky trying to deal with a system that they have no idea about. The bungling gibbon skoda subbied out my bar to untwisted the canbus loom pairs over about a metre to make soldering in easier. It’s a frikking network! Utterly clueless. It was amazing all that went wrong was the body computer did a HAL and started turning lights on randomly – the alternately flashing headlights were almost funny.

The Westphalia bars are excellent. Really easy to fit/remove and last years with no maintenance unlike the bar on my last car that siezed and could not be removed after I left it on for a couple of months. Had 2 Westphalias on different cars.

Much depends on the way the electrics are connected to the car. If it’s a proper connector then generally fine but some after market ones are connected with the little blue 3M inline connectors. A bodge at best that could result in problems down the line. I’ve had both and prefer the proper route. Not long ago had VW detachable Westphalia fitted to my Passat by VW. Cost £600 all in. Was only slightly more than going the PF Jones route with aftermarket electrics but is fully warranted by VW. Of note my Thule rack with LED lights works fine and is fully recognised.

Would also recommend going with the 13 electrics as mentioned above. Much better than the 7 pin.

Good luck.

Sorry for the slight thread hijack, but does anyone have any recommendations for fitters in the Durham area? I think Durham was mentioned in a post above.

There’s a firm I’ve seen locally (TowBar2U) who are quoting £475 for a fixed towbar with dedicated electrics. Not sure how reasonable that is.

Also, do people recommend the swan neck type or not? I’ll probably try to pick up a Thule rack from Gumtree if that makes a difference.

@juanking

have you contacted Buckleys just off St.Macher Drive. Near Euro Car Parts
https://www.buckleytowbars.com/buckley_towbars_towbars_aberdeen_aberdeenshire.html

I got a tow ball and standard wiring harness from them 2 years ago. It has been spot on.
I went with a fixed tow bar and it was a whitter that was fitted. No cutting of bumpers.

Re: Durham, I’ve used these guys couple of times in the past and they are quite well priced, or were last time I used them:
http://www.hedley-towbars.co.uk/

Cheers Niall. They look pretty reasonable.

Detachable westfalia on my e class estate, fitted by PF Jones. Proper wiring kit used

I broke the connector holder when I forgot to unplug the rack. £25 plus postage for a little plastic part. I’ve bodge fixed the part but have yet to fit it. Bodge fix was free, but looks a bit blue Peter! It was user error though, I forgot to unplug