Parking sensors, towbars and wiring looms!

To my mind the vehicle specific wiring is the way to go. That will ensure your complicated canbus system is not interfered with and will have the correct relays and should deal with the reversing sensor issue.

Compared to the cost of the car and caravan, it's very little extra.

Cardboard engineering. Make one in cardboard tape & a 50mm ball of some description & see what happens .... 😉

I'd spend the money & have a detachable bar fitted & remove it when not needed (though a fixed bar would have protected the back of my car the other day 😀) You have spent £thousands on your towcar & seem to want to spend the minimum on the tow bar.

The reverse sensors can't see the towbar on my ML when the tow bar is in use & neither could the R Class's sensors see its detachable when fitted.

We had the dealer fit the vehicle specific manufacturers wiring (in fact the club paid fof it) and yes it does a lot, switches off the sensors when towing amongst other clever things. I think that cars are so sophisticated nowadays that a manufactures wiring might be better and perhaps not invalidate any remaining warranty or cause problems?

It is probably not vital as you can switch off the parking sensors yourself when you tow. But I wouldn't want them off all the time just because I had a tow bar fitted. I do recall someone of here posting that the sensors can be set so that the tow bar doesn't set them off.

One more point make sure you ask for the supplemental wring loom as the basic one will not charge your caravan's battery or power the fridge or ATC

My last car - a Mk3 Mondeo (pre canbus) had a detachable swan neck Witter, which I never removed. It had a vehicle specific wiring loom, and the swan neck never set the reversing sensors off.

Swan neck towbars are also available as 'fixed' rather than detachable versions I believe.

I agree with everyone, go vehicle specific wiring to avoid any headaches.

PF Jones are a good company for towbars (Manchester), are a very good website if you like doing a bit of research yourself. You can get a quote from the website, including fitting at a choice of 4 depots in North West, or mobile fitting at home or work.

Before anyone asks, no I'm not an agent/salesman for them, just trying to be helpful!

I had a towbar from P.F.Jones Ltd fitted to my 2015 Mondeo and can echo lagerorwine's comment about them. I had my fixed swan neck fitted  at home including the recoding all at quite a reasonable price IMO. Everything worked fine and the rear sensor cuts out when the caravan is attached and the sensors don't pick up the towball when driving solo.

And No, like lagerorwine I'm not an agent for P.F.Jones either. I can just recommend them from my personal experience.

so why have a detachable bar fitted if you were never going to remove it? 🤔🤔

I honestly don’t see the point of removing the towbar, I find it more messing about. I once had a removable  towbar fitted on one of my land rovers and never removed it. I might add I never asked for a removable the dealer just put it on at no extra cost as part of the deal. 

We have a 2017 Ford Kuga with factory parking sensors, we have an old fashion fix towbar with a AL-KO towball, 13 pin electrics works perfectly with our Swift LED lights etc absolutely no problems, no mods.

The point is that towbars look cr4p when on the back of a car ... more so on a saloon than on a LR when the receiver is still on show when the bar is removed. 

How much 'messing about' is removing a bar anyway? It takes seconds.

I would always prefer fixed MM. Not bothered about pretty