Hi all.  My first ever Skoda.  A 2020 Octavia estate SEL first edition.  Loving it so far.  I need a towbar fitted for my bike rack and small trailer.  Would welcome any advice on best type.  Detachable so it doesn’t break my shins when not needed.

 

Thanks in advance.  

Skoda forbid to put an afermarket tow bar to my mk4 due to emission reasons(?!). Dealer only warned me the after the purchase was complete.. (I even ordered it on paper through him.)

 

You better ask the fact whether your car is available to have one or not, before running fake scenarios with the bike rack in your mind, like I did. 

 

There should be a black background sticker with white letters on the lower part of the B pillar, if you open the front door. It has the data which tells you such info about the tow bar.

Thanks for the response.  No such issue from the dealer here.  I'm having the tow bar fitted next week by a local company who do work for all the local dealers including VAG.  Not cheap....£570 with specific electrics and removable swan neck.   

Impressive that you managed to get it done via the dealer for £570, given that they charge £800 as an option when you order a car and it must be a lot easier for them to factory fit that fit afterwards.

 

That's around the cost I would expect for aftermarket independent fitters including specific electrics.

 

Cheapest I found is £370 without the dedicated electrics, that's the one I'll be getting

The towbars themselves are available on ebay for about £250, I did fit one myself to my kodiaq (results are on here somewhere) but I'm not sure it was worth the time and effort so will be paying someone this time!

Sorry for the confusion.  That’s not for a dealer to fit but an independent who’s located next to a large number of different dealers including Skoda.  I was quoted 410 for the non specific electrics but decided to go for the specific in case of any warranty issues should the need arise. 

I will be very interested in your results please as we bought the Mk4 to replace our Mk3 to tow our caravan.  Prior to purchase Dealer indicated that fitting an after market tow bar wouldn't be an issue however my local bespoke tow-bar fitter says that he has been unable to access the coding to set up the car.  He had no issues with the Mk3 but the system with the Mk4 is apparently quite different.  I retained my old Westfalia detachable ready to fit to the new car as confirmed by P. F. Jones the initial supplier when I first bought it for our then new 2013 Octavia Elegance.  Purchase wise I have found them always to be the cheapest on-line supplier.

Thanks.  You’ve got me worried now.  I’ll recheck with the tow-bar company, warrington audio and get them to double check.  Otherwise I’ll be sending the car back as not having a tow bar presents a problem!  

So, on rechecking with the Tow Bar company, they were initially confident but digging deeper have established that, unless tow bar preparation was done during the build, it is not an easy job to install an after market tow bar.    After going back to the dealer I bought the car from, we agreed on 3 options.  Return the car, swap the car for one with either a tow bar or at least the preparation or they fit the tow bar at cost.   They would do any of the 3, so in the end we plumped for option no. 3. They would fit the tow-bar.  This included them picking up the car from  my house some 134 miles away, leaving a courtesy car for 2 days, and then dropping the car back when completed.

 

The price - £830 pounds - which is allegedly is below their cost price with no labour charge.  Still out of pocket compered to after market, but at least the benefit of a dealer completed warranty.

 

Why or Why has Skoda made it this difficult and expensive to get a simple job of a tow-bar fitted!

 

Thanks to everyone for their comments / feedback.  Invaluable in this instance.

Not just Skoda. It's the new generation of cars. Security on the control modules mean things can't easily be changed from what I understand. 

It does seem totally illogical that we won't be able to fit an after-market tow-bar as it will have a substantial affect on Tow-Bar fitting companies and drive them out of business.  Also as the Octavia, Supreme and Kodiaq are regularly praised as Tow car of the year.  As mentioned above this will certainly be right across the VAG group and I guess other marks also.  Bit of a mess really.and having queried this prior to purchase when I was assured that it wouldn't be an issue to fit an after-market tow-bar afterwards at any fitters!!!!

1 hour ago, Nosnehm said:

It does seem totally illogical that we won't be able to fit an after-market tow-bar as it will have a substantial affect on Tow-Bar fitting companies and drive them out of business.  Also as the Octavia, Supreme and Kodiaq are regularly praised as Tow car of the year.  As mentioned above this will certainly be right across the VAG group and I guess other marks also.  Bit of a mess really.and having queried this prior to purchase when I was assured that it wouldn't be an issue to fit an after-market tow-bar afterwards at any fitters!!!!

Can’t agree more with your last sentance.

I have a friend who works for Which.....I'm tempted to ask him if this is something they will investigate and highlight.  I'm rather annoyed at this.

I bought my original towbar from P. F. Jones the national suppliers and had it fitted to 2 previous Octavias as I said above.  Yes each time the ECU/CAN required recoding after fitting and removal but not a problem.  Having been informed by P. F. Jones that the same towbar will fit the Mk4 I retained it on changing the car and today received confirmation from them that they have sold several kits for the Mk4 with electrics and have had no adverse feedback.  I have emailed my local specialist and await his response re his ability to re-code the car after fitting same.  Incidentally the same towbar fits the Golf, Audi A4 & Seat Leon as well as the Octavia Hatch and Estate.  If Skoda were to make it an issue then a whole swathe of industry will be committed to the scrap heap all around the world.  It would make no sense in the long term.

Any update Nosnehm on whether your local fitter could code your towbar. 

I'm in a very similar situation to yourself. I've got a mk3 to which i fitted a pfjones towbar with dedicated electrics. Was able to code the electrics with vcds. Did all the work myself. 

I'm hoping to upgrade to the mk4. My plan is to remove the towbar from the mk3 and fit to the new car. 

As of yet no, I spoke to my fitter at the beginning of the week but he hasn't got back to me however I did speak again to P J Jones who said they had sold several towbars for the new Octavia and were not aware of any issues but they will specifically check re coding in depth with their techs and get back to me.

I recall reading somewhere that with the latest VAG offerings that fitter are required to get a 'one-time pass code from a dealership' to allow them access to the coding for an individual vehicle but have no further update on that and as you know it is not so easy to get answers from Skoda.  Guess the cars will fall from their position as Tow Car of the Year with the various institutions if you can't retro-fit towing facilities.

Interesting. Further browsing on briskoda has revealed that vcds can no longer make changes on the mk4, for now at least, so that makes sense that the fitter now has to get this pass code.

Might be overreacting, but this is a deal breaker for me. I'd be pushing my budget to the limit to upgrade as it is. Having to add what will probably be €1000+ (Irish prices) option for a factory fitted towbar will push it beyond that budget. 

Thanks for the update. Would love to know what the outcome is. 

Yes will do.  Incidentally I had sought confirmation from my supplying dealership that this wouldn't be an issue prior to commencing with the deal but that is another issue.

My car is going back to the dealer this coming week to have the towbar fitted.  They have given it me for cost price including driving the 260 mile round trip to pick up and drop off the car.  I haven’t been back to the independent tow bar fitter to ask if they have managed to resolve the issue they indicated they would have.  I will do that on Monday and confirm if they were able to resolve it as a reference for others. 

Would I have bought this car had I known about the cost and hassle of aftermarket tow bars, probably not!  Hope others manage to get it resolved.  

How much are the dealer charging you, and how did you manage to make them feel guilty about aftermarket people not being able to fit it? I think its £850 if you specify it and I must admit I'm starting to think as ridiculous as it is given that back in the not too recent past I could get a local bloke to fit them for £150, I should have paid it.

33 minutes ago, Dr_Pepper said:

How much are the dealer charging you, and how did you manage to make them feel guilty about aftermarket people not being able to fit it? I think its £850 if you specify it and I must admit I'm starting to think as ridiculous as it is given that back in the not too recent past I could get a local bloke to fit them for £150, I should have paid it.

They are charging me £835 to fit the tow bar.   Like others I had asked the question about aftermarket tow bars and they assured me that I could have one done without a problem.  So on discovering the issue I rang them back and told them I was rejecting the car.  This could be because this was not a brand new car but a demonstrator they had in stock so had it on a 7 day, 250 mile return guarantee, and I guess they didn’t want the hassle of the paperwork and reselling of the vehicle.   
 

I’m not sure what the situation would have been had it been a brand new car, but this dealer has been very accommodating and seems to care about its reputation.   This is in contrast to BMW who, frankly could give a monkeys when I’ve had issues with my other car.

 

I also had the perception from my previous cars that fitting a tow bar would be a 200quid job, I was hesitant at £520 originally quoted by our local guys, so being up to 835 just seems ridiculous.  I imagine the full price is 1000 as a dealer fitted post market.  

Regardig my situation, where Skoda forbit to  tow any trailer with my mk4 (2nd and 3rd comments), I wonder whether I can fit a towbar simply to use my cycle carrier or not.

This has always been a Grey Area.  You can do whatever you like and if a Bike Carrier bracket AKA as tow bar is only to fit a rack to and carry stuff. Bikes or tote boxes.  Between you and the warranty underwriter Re bar and electrics.    A tow bar installer fitting a Tow Bar and ball is a different matter from a DIY,r and they know the legislation covering them doing it.

25 minutes ago, mr44 said:

Regardig my situation, where Skoda forbit to  tow any trailer with my mk4 (2nd and 3rd comments), I wonder whether I can fit a towbar simply to use my cycle carrier or not.

What model of octavia do you have. I thought all octavias would have a 750kg towing capacity minimum. If it's a hybrid/electric i guess there may be other limitations that prevent any type of towing. 

 

Of course you don't actually want to tow anything as such. It's a tricky one. 

According to the UK brochure, page 27, the only octavia that does not show a towing capacity is the VRS iv model. Maybe I'm missing something, but surely if it has a towing capacity, it can have a towbar.

Interestingly, several models have a **, which means "it is not possible to retrospectively fit a tow bar if the car is not fitted with tow bar preparation at Factory"