Height of towball on car

[GeorgeandAde]

Hi.After a minor rear end shunt in my Mondeo 2 weeks ago,I now have the car back from the Ford main dealers.

They replaced the rear bumper with a new one ans fitted a brand new Witter towbar.

However,we hooked up to the caravan yesterday for our holiday to Glastonbury and straight away I noticed that the front of the van was much lower than normal and not leaving much distance between the jockey wheel and the road.

Van is loaded as normal and it towed ok,although i was aware of the lower front end of the van.

Is it possible that Ford has fitted the wrong towbar?

Does anyone know the correct height that the towball should be when solo?

Many thanks

 

[Parksy]

The height from the road surface to the centre of your towball must be between 350mm and 420mm Adrian

 

[GeorgeandAde]

Thank sfor your reply Parksy.

Ive just measured ours and its 390mm so it seems ok.

I normally measure the noseweight before each trip but i admit i didnt this time.

The only difference this time is we have a full 6kg bottle of gas in the front locker as opposed to an almost empty one,but i wouldnt have thought it would make that much of a difference really.

 

[Lutz]

The height of the towball quoted by Parksy applies to a fully laden car. If the car was empty when you measured 390mm, it would seem to be close to bottom tolerance.

 

[GeorgeandAde]

Thank you Lutz.

When i took the measurement,the car was completly empty.

Think i had better have a word with Ford when i get home to see if it is the correct towbar fitted to my car(although i would not imagine that they have made a mistake)

I just browsed through a few of my previous photos of the car with the van hitched up.It is certainly much lower now.

 

[Lutz]

Some cars have different towbars depending on whether they are fitted with self-levelling suspension or not. It is conceivable that this is the case here.

 

[marlot]

There certainly seem to be a few models to choose from

http://www.autow.co.uk/towbars/Ford_Mondeo_Saloon_Towbars_12_Mondeo.html