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Quote: Originally posted by Viggo on 12/7/2010

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Official advice is to seek guidance from the tow hitch manufacturer.

See: http://www.caravanclub.co.uk/media/21534/Correct-Attachment-of-Breakaway-Cables.pdf

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Quote: Originally posted by Zafiral on 12/7/2010

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Good attachment Viggo, we only found out when we bought our new van that we were doing it incorrectly. I was clipping the standard breakaway cable direct to a mounting point as the hole is too small to pass the clip through. Now I know we have to just wrap it round the towball.

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I just clip mine to the towbar.  The wire will break before the clip. If in doubt, get a stronger clip.  Looping the wire through a square edged hole might well chafe through the wire.  Much better with a proper clip.  Get one at least double the breaking strain of the wire.

I don't like them wrapped round the ball in case the ball itself detaches. Unlikely though.

Jim

Quote: Originally posted by CandP on 12/7/2010

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There are two holes either side of my detachable towbar, I put a shackle through the hole and feed/loop my breakaway cable through the shackle.

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Quote: Originally posted by LlaniDavis on 12/7/2010

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Tentz, do you have a link to this "rule" as I can't find one?

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We've just changed to a Skoda Octavia Estate (not 4x4) and have had a Witter detachable towbar fitted.  I queried the breakaway cable today and was told to either change our breakaway cable to the sort that has a karabiner on the end and connect it directly to the fixing point (which has a small hole) or put a karabiner throught the fixing point and then loop the breakaway cable through the karabiner and then back on itself.  I asked if looping around the detachable towbar was acceptable and I was told that it's not OK if you have an official fixing point as you should use that. Our existing breakaway cable has a strange metal clip a bit like a weak karabiner but without the spring part.

We've bought an anodised sprung karabiner from Blacks to use for our next trip but will look out for a locking karabiner with a screw gate.  There's a wikipedia article with the differences: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carabiner

Our towbar part number is ZD-3002 and we've been back three times for them to programme the car to switch off the rear parking sensors when the caravan is connected and finally today they've managed it!