Wanabee towbar/ball advice please

[Red_Mick]

Just starting out on my caravan journey, replacement car first thing on the agenda.
I've been looking around and I'm confused, no one advertises fitted prices for towbar and electrics, so does one have to go around getting quotes? Should I go to a caravan dealer, or tow bar specialist? What's the story with the different types of towball arrangement, detachable or not,
and what's Alco (sp?), why swan neck, or why not? Isn't there some issue with towballs and parking sensors?

Any help, or a pointer to a guru would be apreciated, thank you.

 

[Beehpee]

Always seems to be ring around for quotes, I don't know but I expect caravan dealers to be more expensive as like car main dealers they charge more and often then sub out the work to the independent tow bar guy and they obviously put their bit on to what he charges, as for type, I don't know what the benefits are of swan neck but detachable is handy if your likely to be bashing your shins constantly on it, but again detachable will be more expensive and I think quite a bit more, Alko only comes into the equation when you know what hitch your caravan has and only means a different ball on the tow bar and isn't a reference to the tow bar itself, if buying a van that's no more than a few years old it is likely to have Alko hitch, the tow ball itself tho is probably less than a tenner so if you end up with the wrong one it's easily sorted, you must have the correct ball for an Alko hitch tho as the other type is not compatible, I expect others on here can probably give you a more technical answer but I would think this more or less sums things up for you but better to keep asking if not sure in any way at all.

BP