Ford kuga towbar advice

[wwwdot]

Hi all

Asking this question on behalf of my brother in law who has just bought a 17 plate Ford Kuga to replace his 14 plate one. Is it worth paying the extra for a dedicated harness? Apparently the car then has to be 'coded' by Fords dealership so probably around £150 -£200 dearer than a generic harness. By the way his older Kuga never had to be coded and no problems with parking sensors etc

 

[otherclive]

If it’s like my last three cars the main dealer has called in the local towbar fitter who did all of the work. My current car I had done via the Witter website
who have their approved local technicians. I had a choice of generic or OEM harness. I had OEM harness coded by the Witter technician and all worked perfectly. Considerably less than via the Main Dealer.

 

[gravesyt]

Hi wwwdot. otherclive is right if its not fitted at time of build ford use a local fitter but it was recommend to use OEM harness and modula as it will not effect the warranty I fitted a witter fixed bar(no cut outs) ford wiring and coded for £450 . the reason for the fix towbar was for my bike rack

 

[wwwdot]

His local Ford dealer uses the same fitters who fitted his last towbar. He has contacted them for a quote but they don't really offer advice. They do say that Ford dealers have to do the remapping.
My own personal view is that its down to warranty on the car and if its affected by using a non Ford harness.

 

[Craigyoung]

Hi ,wwwdot ,
we got ours fitted just in November 2o16 a few weeks after we got our car I went to an independent fitter in County Durham who also done our previous toyota to . I'm not sure what you mean by the harness but ours work no brother and does not affect the rear parking sensors when reverse selected and that was fitted for £27o.oo , the same company also came out and done my friends kuga at his front door for the same price and both happy and both work perfectly well.

Craig

 

[ProfJohnL]

The issue is not just the parking sensors. Many modern cars have an electronic stability control programme and it needs to know that a trailer sytsem has been fitted so it can and will change some of its criteria when a trailer is coupled.

Without the proper remap. the ESC, may apply a correction designed for a solo vehicle to one that is towing and that might exacerbate an instability problem.

With some vehicles the ESC and other vehicle control systems may use suspension compression sensors to trigger some aspects of the vehicles systems. The additional lod of a caravan may cause these sensors to give the wrong information to the systems, producing inappropriate control outputs. This is also one of the reasons why spring assisters should not be used, as they change the suspensions characteristics.

 

[gravesyt]

the only advice I can give is what was given to me from my ford dealer the warranty will not be affected as long as all parts used Must be OME parts harness and modula and fitted by a NTTA fitter who also have the ability to remap so the trailer stability is enabled and parking sensor cut out also you will get notification on the screen showing a trailer attached and a few other safety features. Like wwwdot I was very concerned about the warranty especially as the wiring need to be spliced in to the main cabus hmy: . Now when mine go's in for a service they even update the software if needed hope this helps

 

[otherclive]

Likewise my car has a Witter kit with OEM harness and it was recoded by Witter. It recognises the caravan when hitched. Parking sensors inhibited, stop/start inhibited. Bulb failure shows when caravan bulb failed as hedge removed side marker lamp! A friend of mine bought new Tuscon and commented to the Hyundai dealer that the OEM kit was quite a bit more expensive than the Witter. The dealer arranged for him to have the Witter kit fitted and confirmed that warranty would be unaffected, as the dealer would have used the Witter technician too.

 

[wwwdot]

Thanks for all the replies. I will pass on to my brother in law and he canmake his choice

 

[Raywood]

We used an independent firm to fit the towbar but know if we had ordered the car with one from the dealer the same firm would have fitted it and they do this for many other local dealers anyway. If the dealer has it fitted though it is all part of the sale contract if anything goes wrong which might sway some people but get quotes from both parties.
I have a Brink and it seems that manufacturers ones are in fact developed for them by one of the tow bar manufacturers, usually Westfalia or Brink so there may in fact be no difference.
The module might be better if you use the manufacturers though. The firm who fitted ours said some manufacturers will regard the warranty as invalid if another make is fitted, and one of these is Ford.