Tow cars

Hi both clubs 85% rule new to Caravanning 100% people who have years of towing  guidelines onley not law ordered car Friday garage phoned today car not built yet so possible 6 to 8 weeks wait factory closes for 2 weeks at Christmas  not in rush so will probably pick car up in January 

Hi Mylo.

Are you having a factory fitted tow bar? My tow bar was an after fit. It’s OK but I don’t get the benefit of the Ford trailer control. There doesn’t appear to be any way of upgrading it now.

Rgds

Tony

how would you benefit from the trailer control,  if you had alko hitch head and ATC on caravan I would be interested as to what extra this gives, and would you know that it is working and would the car system be fighting the caravan system.

The tow vehicles trailer stability control can directly act on the tow car's systems, the van's ATC can't.

Almost certainly with the car's system this will be  via differential braking, probably engine management and if electric steering that could also be involved.

Good and effective as it is the van's ATC is rudimentary, simply exploiting the tow vehicle to pull the van back inline by braking the van.

I can't see the two "fighting" each other, very much more complimenting each other. Should it be otherwise then both the car's and van's manuals would have dire warnings not to allow operation with the other? 

Personally I would be happy enough to have a system there to manage the car's behaviour, anything and everything to tame a snake please.

The hitch so called "stabiliser" can play a near minimal role in snake abatement, it is there to make the ride less uncomfortable, little if anything else but that it does quite well

Hi tonyburton not having factory tow bar think it was about £800 for electric bar and anther 6 weeks wait thinking of having fixed type bar as don’t want to mess about removing and refitting bar think it’s swan neck and won’t affect rear sensors