buying used towbar - electrics required

[williamshatnerspants]

Hi,

 

I'm looking at buying a used towbar off a wrecker here in New Zealand. Our car did not come with the 'towbar prep' wiring so I need to get all of that from the donor car. Does anyone have a list/photos of what I need? I'm guessing its more than just the wiring at the rear?

 

Thanks

Matt

[chimaera]

You're looking at quite a few hours work, depending on how intact you need to leave the interior parts of the donor car.

 

All of the side panels in the boot need to come out, as well as the door sill panels along the driver's side of the car.

 

The control module is fitted on the right hand side of the boot roughly behind where the tail light is. The harness will be obvious enough from there and it's a case of unplugging it and removing it all the way up to the fuse panel.

 

You may need some pin removal tools to extract the connections from the fuse panel and don't forget to grab the extra wiring harness from the back of the fuse panel: one red wire splitting into three. The trickiest part of the job is extracting the wires from the BCM connector.

[CWARD]

As Chimera stated the wiring is easy enough to extract by removing back seats and panels until you get to the fuse box and can bus connectors. These are fiddly little wires and easily damaged. I’ve seen plenty of used ones on eBay but these connections are always cut. 

Personally I’d get the wiring new to avoid any damage and problems when installing in your car. The wiring loom is in two parts. Fusebox/can bus to module in the boot, which is known as towbar prep.  Second part from module to tow bar connection. I don’t think you can get the tow bar prep separate so need to buy both parts together. Westfalia are the OEM manufacturer and buying their part is around £130. 

[chimaera]

The Skoda kit for vehicles without factory prep includes the entire loom as a single component. Part number EEA 800 103 EL.

[CWARD]

The Westfalia dedicated wiring is two part, three if you include the module itself, the same as the factory prep. Iirc you can’t buy them separate. I have the module to towbar part in the garage from a second hand tow bar I bought but the front part of the loom was damaged and binned. 

[williamshatnerspants]

Thanks very much for all that information. There is no chance the wrecker will take the looms out carefully or at all for the price quoted, and I can't get to the wrecker to do the removal myself, so have shelved the idea.

Have a great weekend!

Matt