knocking???

[smiley]

Ho guys

Our van is in for service now I hope I can explain my question!

We had no probs with our van then we had the alko tow bar put on by a reputable dealer.

Straight away I noticed a difference in towing which I should have except everytime I braked there was a heavy clonk.
I was told I was breaking to heavy? But it still does it...

When mentioned now to the place it's in for service hubby was told that something was broken underneath, and that's why it does it..
The original place in alcester looked at van and said there was no problem if there was we would have paid and let them put it right.
So how do we find out which it is?

 

[Damian]

It sounds like the hitch damper has failed.
Stand at the hitch and push it backwards towards the van (it should need quite a lot of force) then let go and watch to see if it returns outwards on its own, slowly.
If it does not,or if it will not push in at all, the damper has failed and needs replacing.

 

[smiley]

Hubby has just had call the dmpers look fine they are going to do checks..... but when we go away and reverse the hitch always comes back out...

any other ideas??

 

[ValA.]

Last year I reported similar problems on this forum - with knocking from the rear of the car/hitch when towing. We'd just had to buy a car - and bought an 06 Mondeo which we'd just had fitted with a towbar. We hadn't been able to get an appointment where we've previously had our towbar fitted, so went to someone else that we'd had recommended. The knocking was so bad that we were seriously worried, and there were lots of posts in reply suggesting what it might be. (Sorry I can't find the post - but I'll carry on looking). We did lengthy investigations, including towing another caravan with our car (still knocked) and towing our caravan with another car (no knocking). So - it was the car!
We continued to investigate, checking everything. Further checks revealed that the bolts attaching the towbar to the car (underneath the car - not the ones on the towball plate) were incorrectly torqued. They were retorqued and no knocking. Since then we've done four journeys up and down through France with no problems at all.
I'm not sure if this could contribute to your problem - but it's worth checking the towbar!

 

[otherclive]

Had a similar problem to Val but mine was caused because the fitter had not inserted the spacer tube inside the cars body section. He had torqued everything up okay but after a short while towing the cars body section,relaxed, under the torque and resulted in a clonking noise as you describe.

 

[smiley]

We've just heard from dealer they had a good look and it seems that the brakes on the van had been adjusted wrong.

So we won't find out until we get it back. thanks for your help it was good asking the service if they had checked different things that are easy to overlook.

fingers corssed,