Sorry that Annie's hook is dismounted and neither the Elddis nor the Volvo are immediately handy for measurements to be taken.  (Unlike Iain, we use the Three Season system of caravanning!). 

 

Ah...  are you perhaps thinking that the newer Westfalia towbars actually got a shorter and thus lower swan? That would make sense as a lot of people moaned about the Yeti swan's height back in 2010...  maybe Westfalia fixed it...  Interesting.

^ Possible, I suppose.  I didn't know about the earlier business. 

Caravans tended to ride lower in the past.  Drop plates were the norm too ... now obsolete on swan neck brackets and need to have been used during approval testing on flange brackets or are illegal.

I have now towed with both the Suck and see mirrors and the Milenco Aero IIs. It is like night and day. The Suck and see ones vibrate less but the sucker obscures a huge part of your existing mirrors and the actual mirrors are very, very small. I could not reverse with confidence with them. But with the Milencos I can clearly see the caravan and when driving what is behind me as well. I have a convex passenger Suck it mirror and a flat driver's mirror.  But because they were so small got a convex one for the driver's side too. But heck that just meant you had NO idea how far things were really behind you and I probably went hundreds of meters past trucks before pulling in left again.   So for the Milencos I got flat mirrors for both sides. Much better since my mushy brain can now work out exactly how far things are behind me. Phew.

 

I did mount them (as I said above) on the underside of the car's mirrors - this obscured less of the road in your view forward over the mirrors. All fine and well on a Yeti without automatically folding mirrors. But because the bolts and what not are under the car's mirrors, you cannot fold the mirrors in as these bolts will clash with the bodywork.  So as per Iain's photo I will in future mount them on the top so that you can fold them in if need be - or if they get hit by something and get folded in - which if underslung will cause quite a bit of damage to the door metal.

I agree about the need to top-mount in this case.  I prefer underslung - as you say, less forward obstruction - but the SE doesn't have self-folding mirrors so I can tuck the Milencos back gently by hand when necessary (e.g. motorway services). 

I tried them under slung but couldn't quite get used to it .... top best for me.

I'm resurrecting this thread rather than start another one, as I'm looking to buy  a pair of towing mirrors suitable for a Yeti and found this. Seems I may be correct in thinking that the ones with straps don't do so well on the curvy mirrors, but I'm also wondering if the Milencos are still the favourites nowadays? I see there were also comments on flat glass compared to convex, and I had been thinking of getting flat as I like to know how far behind me things actually are.

 

Any and all thoughts welcome as usual, Peter

19 minutes ago, HowardBury said:

...I'm looking to buy  a pair of towing mirrors suitable for a Yeti ....

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