It is a pain and rather fiddly getting bikes mounted and properly attached on the tailgate mounted rack, whereas it’s super easy on the Thule XT, so I would definitely agree with your conclusion
Cost for Westfalia Detachable Towbar + Fitting
- Thread starter Ayjay
- Start date
-
- Tags
- detachable tow bar
It is a pain and rather fiddly getting bikes mounted and properly attached on the tailgate mounted rack, whereas it’s super easy on the Thule XT, so I would definitely agree with your conclusion
Jason, Sorry to be s pain but I'ver just remembered another question (which may or may not be relevant to the fitting). What sort of van do you have? By that I mean Panel Van, Kombi, Camper conversion etc. Mine is a camper and I don't know whether or not that complicates the job (which inevitably means more money). Chers in advance.
It started life as a panel van but underwent full camper conversion.. the 13pin oem loom runs underneath the van from the back to the front.. so it sounds like yours will be the same type of installation as mine.
Nobby Diesel
Fabricator
First post on here, so please be gentle!
Today, I visited Professional Retrofits near Nuneaton. Westfalia detachable fitted, no prep and I supplied the VW plastic rail and various fixings(£50 ish).
PR charged £495 inc VAT. Wiring loom used was routed toward the front of the vehicle; no little clips, into the existing wiring at the back of the van.
Took 2.5 hours.
All seems well.
Today, I visited Professional Retrofits near Nuneaton. Westfalia detachable fitted, no prep and I supplied the VW plastic rail and various fixings(£50 ish).
PR charged £495 inc VAT. Wiring loom used was routed toward the front of the vehicle; no little clips, into the existing wiring at the back of the van.
Took 2.5 hours.
All seems well.
£18 each from vw iircIts worth requesting the foam pads as part of your installation just to be sure..
Nobby - Firstly, welcome to the forum and thanks for some very useful information. Don't ever worry about posting on here - if you're wrong about something, others will let you know (but gently!). T6F is a far better and friendlier place than an awful lot of the internet forums and as long you are respectful of them, others will be the same to you.
OK after all of the foregoing, has anybody had any recent contact with PF Jones. I ask as I wanted to ask a couple of supplementary questions about the job (ie. concerning the foam inserts and who their local [to me] fitter is but I've made a number of phone call to them over the last week and, on each occasion, hung up after an hour or more of waiting for an answer. I've also fired off a couple of emails without response. I really wanted to pull the trigger on the order but the total lack of communication from them doesn't really inspire much confidence. I know we are in difficult time at the moment but..............
Jason, Thanks for that - well they've not yet replied to the message that I sent them Thursday PM and by my reckoning, that's more than 2 days now. Can I ask what email address you used - was it 'info@pfjones.co.uk' as listed on their website? Cheers again.
Only my very first contact was through that email address... a sales advisor called Mark was appointed and every other email went direct to him. Might be worth dropping him a line at: mark.harris@pfjones.co.uk
I’ve just fitted a tow bar and the electrics to my panel van (with no tow bar prep) from PF Jones, but not the detachable one. My van had no metal beam behind the bumper, just a length of box section plastic, which I carefully cut to allow the fitment of the bar while retaining the clips for the rear parking sensor cable. I don’t know what the foam inserts that have been mentioned are for, but I didn’t use any and my bumper seems as well supported as before.
The cable (which should have been fed from the front I think) runs from the 13 pin socket, along the left side of the van (I tie-wrapped it to existing cables) with a branch of three wires going up under the passenger seat and the main cable going up into the engine bay emerging beside the battery compartment. A further branch runs from here across the bulkhead to enter the cabin through an existing hole near the steering column. There is a rubber grommet as part of the loom to seal this. This branch connects into the van harness behind two hard-to-reach multi pin connectors under the dash - the most tricky part of the job. Back at the battery bay the loom includes fuses and the trailer module as well as two connections to each side of the battery. That branch up under the passenger seat was not connected to anything in my van (LED lights?) so did not really need to be fed into the van to only connect two of the three wires together. That could have been done under the body & taped up.
I would expect this to be the same loom that PF Jones would use themselves as it is their own loom.
The loom cost £127 while the tow bar was discounted and the total cost was £243.
I may have considered paying for fitting, but I was worried that having a large 85 litre LPG tank instead of the spare wheel on my TSI might cause problems. I would not have said it was a particularly difficult job (tow bar and electrics) otherwise.
The cable (which should have been fed from the front I think) runs from the 13 pin socket, along the left side of the van (I tie-wrapped it to existing cables) with a branch of three wires going up under the passenger seat and the main cable going up into the engine bay emerging beside the battery compartment. A further branch runs from here across the bulkhead to enter the cabin through an existing hole near the steering column. There is a rubber grommet as part of the loom to seal this. This branch connects into the van harness behind two hard-to-reach multi pin connectors under the dash - the most tricky part of the job. Back at the battery bay the loom includes fuses and the trailer module as well as two connections to each side of the battery. That branch up under the passenger seat was not connected to anything in my van (LED lights?) so did not really need to be fed into the van to only connect two of the three wires together. That could have been done under the body & taped up.
I would expect this to be the same loom that PF Jones would use themselves as it is their own loom.
The loom cost £127 while the tow bar was discounted and the total cost was £243.
I may have considered paying for fitting, but I was worried that having a large 85 litre LPG tank instead of the spare wheel on my TSI might cause problems. I would not have said it was a particularly difficult job (tow bar and electrics) otherwise.
Spot on!
[/QUOTE]
It's a coincidence that somebody has revived this thread as I'm finally due to have the towbar fitted next week. I gave up on ever contacting PF Jones HQ but was advised by the manager of one of their regional workshops about the guy that PFJ sub-contract to do installations in my area and I contacted him direct. The job was supposed to have been done last Friday but he called me on Thursday to say that TPS had let him down on the foam bumper supports and would not now be able to get them until today or perhaps Monday. On that basis, we have put the job off until next week - I'm in no real hurry but it's annoying all the same. That said, I've no reason to think it's anything other than a cock up by TPS and the man himself seems straight enough and certainly seems to know what he's taking about. I'll report back as and when the work gets done.
Just to close this one down, the towbar was fitted yesterday and the guy that did the job only reinforced my original opinion that he knew what he was about. After fitting the towbar (inc. bumper supports) and all the associated 13 pin T6 specific wiring, he coded it in and plugged in a Westfalia test rig to check that everything worked as it should. I'll have to take his word for it for now that it does as I haven't got anything to put on the towbar and plug into the 13 pin socket - that's the next thing on the seemingly never ending campervan shopping list. Apart from being very competent, the fitter was a nice guy as well who's based in Shropshire but travels all over the place for jobs - he came to me in Gloucestershire and the next job was in Newport. If I remember correctly, he was down in Wiltshire last week as well. If anybody wants his details, PM me.
Last edited:
