I'm not an expert on this as I've only just had a swan neck removable fitted 2 weeks ago but mine has got a ring on the main crossbar but you do have to get low to see it. I would have thought there is always a danger looping around the swan neck because if the towball comes free from the mounting, so does the breakaway cable.
JohnGriff is right. There is a ring which as he says is not the easiest to see, but it is the one you should use. If towing in Holland, it is illegal to just loop it round the towbar.
Im not an exert on this but I can only pass on what happend to us in Germany. Got pulled over for spot check all was going very very well till they checked break-away cable. I had just looped it around the towing ball. That will not do they said. I had to attach it to the towing bracket fitted to the car. It was explained to me that in most cases it is the tow ball that fails and looping it round this item would not be in the best interest.They did have a point thinking about it.
There should be an eyelet for the breakaway cable somewhere on the actual tow bracket, not the hitch part. However many of these eyelets will not allow for the usual method of fitting in that you pass it through and loop it back on itself. There are now 2 types of breakaway cable and one is designed for fittings such as these and can be clipped directly to the eyelet.
Hi have a factory fitted detachable swan neck and i have no clip on the swan neck or an eye.I had a chat with a guy who had an Mercedes ML as he clipped his to his spare wheel cradle as he was told it was illegal to loop around the towball.
I have always looped around the towball and never been told off over it even though i have had spot checks and have travelled in most of Europe.
The chances of the towball breaking must be pretty low as AL kO have never had a failure according to their helpline when i raised the question a few years ago.
There is an advice sheet on the caravanclub website:
same here mikey, ive had 3 detachable swan necks fitted to my various cars last one was a brink fitted to the alhambra and my latest a westfalia fitted to my s max. none of the 3 have had any sort of loop or clip for the breakaway cable and i too was adviced by the fitter and the club technical center to just loop the breakaway cable round the towhitch.
like you ive towed extensivly throughout europe and never had a problem.
when we went on the club towing course we where adviced that the clip as fitted to breakaway cables was not designed to be used as a clip for this purpose as it was too soft on its own and needed to be looped back on to the cable as such the cable fitted to most vans would not be long enough to reach the towing bracket under the car even if a loop was provided.
I'm surprised that the "club" towing instructor didn't mention the carabina type of cable which is specifically designed to clip directly onto an achor point.
On my X5 I screw in a spare towing hook I bought. I screw it into the towing hook thread (the fitting is at the side of the tow ball) then attach the breakaway cable to this.
Instead of using the one that came with the car, which is bulky and restricts the fitting of the towball I got an old towing hook from a scrapyard (it came off and old Volvo) because the screw threads are fairly common. This was narrower but it needed filing down a touch, just enough to allow the tow ball attachment to go on.
However, I believe it is legal to wrap the cable around the tow ball anyway
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