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 Topic: New car tow bar high
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20/3/2023 at 2:30pm
Location: London
Outfit: Lunar Cosmos 524
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Quote: Originally posted by Colin21 on 19/3/2023
Quote: Originally posted by navver on 19/3/2023
I believe towbars have to be type tested for both the towbar and hitch and the car mountings and that this is now part of the MOT test. Has been for a while. I would guess a drop plate would be included in that.
Yes that is correct, but a drop-plate is something supplied by towing suppliers, and as far as I know is still available, so would simply installing one make it an illegal modification? I have no need of one but I'm still curious.
I think the critical point is (and this is from someone who has spent a goodly part of their career working with equipment approvals!), that any change to the tow bar as it was submitted for type approval (which IS a legal requirement), will (as a technicality) rend it 'modified' and therefore no longer compliant! Non-compliant = Illegal under the law as far as I can see it.
Fitting a drop plate will change all the dynamic loadings on the tow bar, which at least potentially may lead to distortion/failure, so not to be dismissed completely as a risk. A light trailer is not likely to be any kind of a risk, BUT the towbar is in place for ANY trailer to be attached, and that may be by a unsuspecting subsequent owner!
I don't for one moment think in the real world there is a problem, but we are talking about approvals/bureaucracy/legalities here, and usually they have little latitude! Whether your average MOT inspector has either the knowledge/information or skill to identify if a tow bar is modified is also highly doubtful.
The thing that always worries me most with these situations, is not the safety (as an engineer, I'm a fair judge of safe/unsafe), it's that insurers will drop any claim on the hint of something being non-standard, even as a technicality! I suppose there is a minuscule risk that you may get caught in a roadside check by DVSA who would be in a better position to judge modified or not, and could stop your ongoing journey right there! From roadside checks carried out a couple of years back, around 40% of small trailers were found to be defective in some way (only around 16% of caravans were defective by comparison!), so IF there was a roadside check you may well find that a small trailer would get stopped for inspection in preference to a caravan, as odds are it's more likely to have an issue!
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