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I did this at last years NFOL,i asked a helpfull chap from the Kent constabularly who confirmed he didn't think it was allowed but wasn't sure,this is what sparked off the original "debate".

You just can't help some people,he will not admit he was wrong,i just don't want the thing coming adrift when he's travelling,it'll give me no pleasure to say i told him so.

There has always been this taboo about raisng with a drop plate wheras until recently its been OK to use one to lower.

An American posting on one web site said that it was common practice in America

It seems to me that if the towbar is constructed so that the main bar is at the highest point stresses will be totally different to bars which come below the bumper and then rise to the towball.

Using a drop plate to lower on the former would increase leverage on the mountings just as using a drop plate to raise would on the latter.

The converse would also be true.

Using a drop plate to raise on the bar above the tow ball would decrease the moment on the mounting points.

Its a manufacturers cop out to say that the bar is not type approved with a "drop" plate because its not been tested with one when they do the testing or submit the bar for testing without a drop plate.

Just as an aside has anyone ever read of a prosecution for use/misuse of drop plate

You raise some good point John and Davep for that matter, but as I see it every car is different and the towbar then is designed to fit each individual car, further  every caravan is mounted on a couple of different chassis.

So why is it then that this problem of 'miss match' (more than an an inch) prevails.....surely it's not rocket science to give us a bar to tow a trailer without need to modify it?

This is very true Gary

We were behind a van the other day which had an adjustable tow bar

The ball was mounted on a metal block with a vertical screw a bit like a caravan steady winder  so that it could be raised or lowered.

Not very pretty but effective

At the N E C show where the floor would be thought to be level I measured some  coupling heights to the red dot on the side of the Alko hitch etc and they varied from 500mm for the Swift to 430 for the Caravelair

Caravelair 430, Avondale 440, Lunar 455, Burstner,Abbey, Coachman all 460, Swift 500.

Towball height is supposed to be betweem 350mm and 420 mm(from memory)

So if your car is at 350mm and caravan at 500mm you have a big difference which the caravan industry expect us to accept.

I've just had a look at this website but amazingly it seems to cover everything except coupling height match/mismatch

http://www.ntta.co.uk/law/index.htm

The problem is that if the car is at one extreme of the spec and the caravan is at the other.

Max on one and min on the other or in the case of my figures above if caravan is manufactured 30 mm above the max tow ball spec then problems arise

Drop plates have been a readily availabe accessory for years but now because we must conform to an EEC rule they are illegal

They were only readily available because there was a demand for them otherwise nobody would have been marketing them