Heavy Towing Package with a Weight Distribution System in a Heavy Duty Specification

At the heavy end: a weight distribution hitch, which moves load off the rear axle and back onto the front, and is the difference between a stable combination and a vague one.

Towing is the one thing you can buy for a car where the wrong part is not merely disappointing. Every towbar listing here states the type approval number, the D value, the maximum noseweight and whether the bumper has to be cut, because those four facts decide whether a bar is legal on your vehicle and whether it will pull what you want to pull. Every electrical listing says plainly whether it is a dedicated loom or a universal one with a bypass relay, and what each will and will not do. We would rather lose a sale to a cheaper part than sell you one that does not fit.

Specification

• Fits: vehicle specific, confirmed against your VIN before the order. Heavy towing is exactly where a nearly right bar is not good enough
• Approval: UNECE R55, with the approval number on the plate and on the certificate. Every car first registered in the UK after 1 August 1998 must be fitted with a type approved towbar, approved for that specific make, model and body shape. The approval number is printed on a plate riveted to the bar and it is stated on every towbar listing on this site. A bar without one is not a cheaper towbar, it is an uninsured one.
• Rating: chosen above, up to 3500kg. The vehicle's own gross train weight is the binding figure and the audit in this package tells you what it is
• D value: 13.4 to 17.0 kN depending on the vehicle. The D value is the measure of how hard a towbar can be pulled. It is worked out from the towing vehicle's maximum mass and the trailer's maximum mass together, in kilonewtons, and the bar's D value has to be equal to or greater than the figure your combination produces. We publish it on every bar and there is a calculator linked from every towbar page.
• Noseweight: 140 to 150kg on the bar in this specification, which is the point of buying a heavy duty one. Noseweight is the downward load the trailer puts on the ball, and the figure you may use is the lowest of four numbers: the towbar's S value, the vehicle handbook's noseweight limit, the towball's rating and the caravan coupling's rating. Most people know the first and none of the other three, and a combination that is legal on paper is often over the limit on the one that matters.
• Ball height: 350 to 420mm laden, and drop plates are included where the vehicle sits high. A pickup with a lift kit will almost always need one
• Electrics: 13 pin dedicated as standard, with sealed connectors on the agricultural specification. A 7 pin 12N plug carries lighting only. A 13 pin plug to ISO 11446 carries the lighting plus a permanent feed, a switched feed and a fridge feed for a caravan, in one connector. If you are towing a caravan or anything with a battery in it, 13 pin is the answer. If you are towing a trailer with nothing but lamps on it, 7 pin is genuinely enough and we will not upsell you.
• Fitting time: three to five hours, included where the fitted option is chosen
• Bumper: stated before you order. On a pickup it is usually no cut, on a van sometimes a step modification
• Materials: uprated for the heavier end of the range: thicker section, a higher D value and a higher noseweight, which matters more than most people realise
• Weight: approximately 78.2 kilograms
• Guarantee: a lifetime guarantee on the towbar weldment and two years on the electrics, plus three years on the accessories
• Gross train weight: the figure most often exceeded, and the one on the VIN plate rather than in the brochure. It is the vehicle plus its load plus the trailer plus its load, all together
• Weight distribution: included, which moves load forward off the rear axle and is worth more to stability than any other single item
• Load security: a briefing sheet on lashing, load spreading and the legal position, which is a real enforcement area for commercial towing
• Breakaway: A trailer over 750kg gross must have brakes, and it must have a breakaway cable connected to the vehicle rather than looped over the towball as a formality. A breakaway cable that is not attached to a fixed point does nothing at all in the one moment it exists for.
• Mirrors: If the caravan or trailer is wider than the towing vehicle, the law requires you to have an adequate view along both sides, and in practice that means extension mirrors. The requirement is a view of a four metre strip beside the trailer at twenty metres behind the driver's eye, under the Road Vehicles Construction and Use Regulations. It is enforced, and the fine and the points are real.

What arrives

• the heavy duty towbar and fixings
• a 13 pin dedicated loom
• drop plates where the vehicle needs them
• the weight distribution system where included
• a written gross train weight audit
• the approval certificate and fitting instructions

Fitting

Three to five hours. Heavy duty bars are heavier to handle and the fixings are torqued higher, and on most applications this is a two person job on a ramp. The audit is done with your actual trailer and your actual load rather than from the brochure figures.

Before you order

The number that catches out heavy towing is the gross train weight. It is on the VIN plate, it covers the vehicle and the trailer and everything in both, and a loaded pickup with a loaded horsebox behind it will exceed it long before either reaches its own individual limit. The audit in this package puts your actual combination on paper, which is worth having whether or not you are ever stopped.