Hitch on a 2016 A6

Blowheads

Any idea how much to put a hitch on a 16 A6?

darragh o meara

Blowheads wrote: »

Any idea how much to put a hitch on a 16 A6?

Got quoted €550 ish by McCabe’s for a vertical detachable towbar and vehicle specific wiring harness and canbus control unit ( highly recommended to save someone splicing into your wiring harness ). All fitted. Fixed Towbar’s were cheaper but I wanted one that was invisible when removed and was happy with the one they fitted to my 5 series 2 yrs ago.

Did many get an A6 in the end but will be getting one for the EClass after this lockdown.

ml100

darragh o meara wrote: »

Got quoted €550 ish by McCabe’s for a vertical detachable towbar and vehicle specific wiring harness and canbus control unit ( highly recommended to save someone splicing into your wiring harness ). All fitted. Fixed Towbar’s were cheaper but I wanted one that was invisible when removed and was happy with the one they fitted to my 5 series 2 yrs ago.

Did many get an A6 in the end but will be getting one for the EClass after this lockdown.

That's a very good price for vehicle specific wiring harness, got quoted 550 for detachable with generic bypass relay from two different fitters for a ford smax, both 13pin sockets. Was told ford relay system adds 200-300. one of these fitters was recommended by the ford dealer as they use them themselves!

shane b

Just be aware that if a bypass relay is used and your car has rear parking sensors, the sensors will still detect whatever you are towing when you select reverse.
I got a towbar fitted to an Octavia about 18 months go and the beeping can be distracting when trying to reverse a trailer. My octavia doesn't have have the option to silence the beeping as I only have sensors on the rear.
The other option is getting the towbar wired and programmed so that when reverse is selected that it drops out the sensors altogether. This means getting the cables up to the front of the car which is more time consuming and expensive.

ml100

shane b wrote: »

Just be aware that if a bypass relay is used and your car has rear parking sensors, the sensors will still detect whatever you are towing when you select reverse.
I got a towbar fitted to an Octavia about 18 months go and the beeping can be distracting when trying to reverse a trailer. My octavia doesn't have have the option to silence the beeping as I only have sensors on the rear.
The other option is getting the towbar wired and programmed so that when reverse is selected that it drops out the sensors altogether. This means getting the cables up to the front of the car which is more time consuming and expensive.

Yeah, smax has a switch for disabling the parking sensors, and was told to get detachable towbar as the rear sensors will pick up the towbar when fitted even when not towing anything, that was a witter towbar, the other fitter thought that the sensors wouldn't pick up the towbar, that was a brinks towbar. Ford dealer is fitting the witter one.

shane b

I have a fixed towbar (7 pin) and the sensors dont pick the towbar. I did get a price from skoda at the time and it was over 900 euro for a detachable one plus the full wiring up to the ECU. Couldn't justify spending twice the price at the time .

darragh o meara

shane b wrote: »

Just be aware that if a bypass relay is used and your car has rear parking sensors, the sensors will still detect whatever you are towing when you select reverse.
I got a towbar fitted to an Octavia about 18 months go and the beeping can be distracting when trying to reverse a trailer. My octavia doesn't have have the option to silence the beeping as I only have sensors on the rear.
The other option is getting the towbar wired and programmed so that when reverse is selected that it drops out the sensors altogether. This means getting the cables up to the front of the car which is more time consuming and expensive.

The vehicle specific wiring harness I got fitted to my 5 series at the time done all this for me, turned off the rear parking sensors, changed the gearing pattern and braking of the car and seemed to have raised the air suspension a little bit in the rear when towing. Having used bypass relays and the likes before, this system is a lot better and saves having the cars harness hacked into. From what I could see, once they got power to the unit all it needed was a connection to the cars canbus for which there was already a connector in the boot and some coding to tell the car it was there.

It’s a more expensive option but I wouldn’t have anything else fitted next time.

beggars_bush

How often will you use the hitch?

Blowheads

beggars_bush wrote: »

How often will you use the hitch?

Not very often, but would be handy to pick up firewood, ideally used as a bike rack alternative (5 bikes), bring stuff to landfill etc