Garage charges

[jordan1]

We all know these are quite high but one of my daughters bought a used BMW from the main dealer in Hull and asked for a tow bar fitting...…£3000 would you believe. A specialist firm is calling to fit it £400, bit of a difference. I know garages have overheads but £3000

 

[Ashley Burton]

Maybe they didn't want to do the job

 

[Revs1972]

It's £400 to fit the towbar on a BMW.............


And £2600 to make the wiring for the indicators work

 

[Burdekin]

You sure they aren’t fitting a BMW to her tow bar for that price?

 

[bigegg]

Lexus wanted £1300 to fit one to mine - that did include transmission cooler and electrics.

The list price (supply only,) for just the towbar is £459!!!


Three grand is taking the mic.

 

[brightspark]

it is a bmw get a ford 150 quid for a towbar

 

[CompoSimmonite]

Mate wanted a towbar on his new Peugeot 2008. I could get one,and fit it, for under £100 however the proper wiring harness was something like another £150 and then it needed main agent to activate the ECU to work the lights. If it was a used car out of warrantee then a bypass unit could have be used but in the end he didn't bother having one fitted

 

[Welderpaul]

Reinforces my theory that we all make a living by ripping each other off these days!

 

[brightspark]

shoulda said to them u don't want the car with it as well

 

[anto44]

£3000 I'd think bad of paying that for a trailer never mind the towbar. You'll probably find an independent towbar company will do it for a fraction of that. If the car is under manufacturer's warranty I'd be careful about aftermarket towbars. I've worked in a few different main dealers and seen a good few warranty claims rejected because of aftermarket parts fitted. Another thing to check would be to get them to explain exactly what's included for that price, like bigegg said it might include uprated transmission parts. Also on some of the manufacturers towbars the box for the lights doesn't just make the lights work, it also communicates with the braking, engine and transmission systems to let them know when a trailer is connected, most modern braking systems have a trailer mode programmed in which makes them operate accordingly. If it's outside warranty I'd personally just either fit yourself or go to an independent place to get it done.
On a side note has anyone driven a vehicle with trailer mode active?

 

[Turbo]

Another thing to be aware of is a tow bar can interfere with the parking sensors, cameras, etc.

Recently heard about someone who refused to pay £800 for a tow bar on a new x-trail. Fitted an aftermarket tow bar but then all his toys stopped working & warning lights galore. Took it to an auto electrician who could do nothing & ended up back at Nissan so that they could program the ecu to accept the tow bar, costing £800 plus he was out the cost of fitting his own tow bar!

 

[Farside]

On a side note has anyone driven a vehicle with trailer mode active?

If it's put into sub-mode 'caravan', it hogs the centre lane, won't go over 40mph, and makes a beeline for the smallest narrowest backroads on the satnav.

 

[frank horton]

seem to remmeber that a new Audi 4x4, the tow bar was an option at over £5,0000......(the old top gear).....hahaha.......mugs........hahaha........

 

[dobbslc]

If it's put into sub-mode 'caravan', it hogs the centre lane, won't go over 40mph, and makes a beeline for the smallest narrowest backroads on the satnav.

And gets stuck on Porlock Hill in Somerset on the tight bend with the faint wiff of toasted clutch !!!

 

[dobbslc]

When I say faint wiff of clutch I mean there was a smoke screen across the valley! The idiot was there for hours and some poor sod had to recover that! Monkey!

 

[brightspark]

a guy I know had a 2 month old audi and was reversing his boat with a 4 wheel trailer up a soft gravel drive .he was riding the clutch when it got stuck I could smell the burning plate 50 yards away and couldn't see the car . he took it to garage under warranty .he told them he was just towing up a hill they couldn't believe one going cos there massive

 

[Ton-up]

The towbars need coding so the car abs knows about the trailer. By using a bypass box you are invalidating insurance and they have been known not to pay out in the event of an accident.

 

[slim_boy_fat]

Also, some now retract etc, don't know if the £3k price was for one of those?

Cars in general now are so hugely complicated with Canbus etc and have, frankly, too many 'toys' but we have become blase about having them. Iirc, the latest BMWs [and doubtless other marques] have moved on the the next generation of wiring systems [the name of which escapes me for the moment ] but it's progress and there's no putting the genie back in the bottle. Quotes like these are the price we pay.

As @anto44 says, there is much 'behind the scenes' which the 'average punter' [not a dig at the OP] is completely unaware of until it impacts on the wallet.

 

[jordan1]

She would have been happy for them to fit it for a fair price, they quoted £150+ per hour, even then I would have thought it could have easily been done in a day. So where do they get the £3000 from?.

 

[Robotstar5]

Land Rover fit a tow hitch that deploys at the touch of a button now - link