Towbars – What To Consider When Looking To Purchase One

As a family, we love to drive off and go camping for weekends, or weeks at a time. We mostly keep it really simple, a tent, sleeping bags and a car full of provisions. Last year though, for a change, we decided to rent a caravan and do it that way. Not having a towbar on the jeep, I clearly needed to get one installed.

So I made my way down to All Vehicle Accessories (AVA) in Thomastown to get a cheap towbar installed. The cheaper it was the better it was as far as I was concerned. After all, we were about to go on holiday and I wanted to use my spending money there. Luckily for me, the guys at AVA were professional enough to talk me out of using price as a means of discriminating when choosing a towbar.

They were actually pretty good about it. What they did was show me the nominal cost increments between cheap and expensive towbars. They pointed out that this piece of equipment was all that was protecting whatever it was I was towing. In my case, obviously I wanted to tow the caravan on the trip we were taking. But I also intended buying some bike racks as my wife loves triathlon. Bike racks would be really helpful on those early morning trips into the hills for a training session.

From there is was a simple comparison of the increments (between cheap and quality) with the prices of the items the towbar was looking after. So between the two bikes we own, there is about $6,000 worth of equipment to start with.

I didn’t know how much caravans were worth, I had to do some research on them to figure that one out. But I now know that you’ll be lucky to get anything under $5000 for a caravan and they actually go all the way up to about $120,000. That certainly is a “heavy” load for the towbar.

I really valued the advice I was given on this day. It completely changed my perspective in what I was buying when shopping for a towbar. It changed my mind regarding what I was looking for. Instead of shopping for price, I was shopping for quality, reliability, robustness and efficiency. Yes, that’s right, efficiency. Different towbars actually make you vehicle perform differently too.

The AVA professionals pointed out to me that the Hayman Reese towbars are the only brand in Australia which carries a lifetime guarantee. This I thought was pretty telling, especially as quality was now the issue. I was almost sold. These particular towbars though had two additional features which absolutely convinced me.

They have this thing they call a “Weight Distribution Hitch”. When applied to your towbar, this hitch actually reduces the drag on your vehicle by reducing ball weight. And you know what that means. By paying a little more for a quality towbar and weight distribution hitch, all of a sudden you are saving money on fuel, on tyre wear and all the other things that wear out faster when you are pulling something. So it actually is a dis-economy to go the cheaper option on a towbar.

The other thing they sell is an accessory called Sway Control. This one I definitely wanted as it makes towing so much safer. Given that my family are going to be in the vehicle with me as we drive on our holiday, safety really is my first priority. Sway control is simply the add on that stops the caravan from swerving all over the road, every time a truck drives past the other way. A very nifty accessory which makes for a much safer trip.

This experience was a rare one for me. Usually when told I am wrong its like a red rag to a bull. The guys at AVA explained to me the importance of a quality towbar though, in a such a professional way that I didn’t feel in the least bit miffed. At the end of the day, they are the experts and they were just helping me protect my family.