I am at the point of deciding where to go for a towbar fitting. I am very tempted to go to my local specialist. He is cheaper than my skoda dealer but more importantly he inspires me with a lot of confidence. He has kept in touch via email and sent me all sorts of snippets of info and links regarding develpment of the towbar for the superb. He can offer me a brink one (well repsected make) or is happy to fit the skoda one. He has looked a the skoda one and says it loks pretty decent. He can do all the wiring (proper vehicle specific wiring kit) and ECU coding to make all the bells and whistles work (turnign parking sensors off and activating trailer stability control etc). He seems very swtiched on and I was jst about to book the fitting when.....

I suddently thought - are there any warranty implications if a non-frnachise dealer fits the bar ?It will be a skoda bar but the tapping into the ECU and doing the coding worries me due to the recent issues I have been having with electrical systems. The flip side is that I bet the dealer has not fitted a bar to a superb yet ? They also wnat about £100 more (this is under negotiation as the other delaer 35 miles away charge the same price as my specialist).

The irony is that the specialist often does work for the dealer as they sometimes farm out towbar fititng !!

your views and advice welcomed as always ....

My current '57 plate Octavia and my '09 Octavia which we collect tomorrow have both been fitted with Brink brackets by local independants, arranged by our dealer prior to collection. No issues in 5000 miles of towing with the current one and don't anticipate any issues with the new one.

There used to be issues fitting non-manufacturer brackets but it was all resolved, from memory, in the 90's ... personally I'm not worried. As you say the independants tend to know a lot more about fitting them than the dealers as they are doing it day in day out.

that is different though - if it was arranged by the dealer then they have some responsibility if it goes wrong.

We are having electrical gremlins and I dont want the dealer to blame future issues on teh fact that the ECU has been modified (for the towing functions) by someone else !

However I have more confidence in the towing specialist with the original installation