Quote:

I"ve just ordered my hitch from Mitchells. Question - looking at the pic of the original tongue in the new hitch & seeing how far it sticks out. Instead of buying another one is there enough metal there to be able to cut it shorter and have a new hole drilled for the pin ?

Does cutting the hitch down (shortening it) mean it is no longer "rated" (3500kg / 350kg); I have been told it makes the rating defunct Can someone tell me please?

Mr Andrew wrote:

My apologies if this as already been covered (although I could not find in in the 26 pages), but is the increase in distance between the axle and the towball a concern? I hate my standard plough, but worry that the great looking Mitchell alternative seems to put towball a long way back, which would amplify towloads, and affect the vehicle dynamics? Any technical reactions, rather than just anecdotal stuff?

Here is my experience to date:-
I had the Mitchell Bros towbar fitted last week, along with a Kaymar rear bar 8) . I tow a 2000kg dual axle caravan with a ball-weight of 180kg behind an "S" model TDV6 (so I have coils on my vehicle rather than air bags). Prior to fitting the Mitchell Bros hitch I had towed the 'van with the LR "plough" and used a 150mm riser to get the whole outfit running straight. I hadn't experienced any problems with the OEM tow set-up but wanted the Mitchell Bros towbar so that I could use a Hayman Reece weight distribution hitch ("WDH") to correct the nose-up-tail-down attitude that the D3 adopted as soon as you hitched the 'van on.

Do you or don't you use a WDH? Well, the owner's manual certainly says that you should not use one and I've read plenty of theorising on this thread and others about why that is. For my part I have decided to subscribe to the theory that the reason is related to the air-bag suspension. And because I don't have air-bag suspension I've decided that it's OK to use a WDH.

So on the weekend I slid the tongue of my Hayman Reece WDH into the Mitchell Bros towbar for the first time and adjusted it to the appropriate height. The first thing that strikes you is that the ball does look to be a very long way back from the rear of the car . Without the van, the height of the tongue was 23 inches from the ground, but when I put the load of the van onto the ball it dropped to 22 inches. After I inserted the bars into the WDH and connected them to the drawbar of the van (using 5 chain links) the tongue returned to 23 inches (which of course is what is supposed to happen). With everything hitched up and feeling VERY confident we pulled out of the driveway and drove from the western-Sydney suburbs to Nowra on the south coast (a trip of a little over 200kms). On the trip down the coast road a very strange thing happened ... near Kiama the road takes a series of bends ... the speed limit is 80kph and the road surface is very good (and was dry at the time) ... but every time we turned into the bends at or near the speed limit, the DSC activated! It did it again several times on windy bits of road near Berry. Very disconcerting! On the return journey I increased the number of chain links when I connected up the WDH to 6 links (which means that I reduced the amount of pressure being exerted by the WDH) but the DSC still activated several times.

I'm not sure why the DSC activated. Apart from the Mitchell Bros hitch and using the Hayman Reece WDH, the only other thing that was different was that I have just fitted Cooper S/T tyres (I don't see that new tyres would make the DSC activate). At this stage I suspect it might be the WDH and nothing to do with the Mitchell Bros towbar, but I'll have to wait 'till next time I take the 'van out to see whether the DSC activates when I don't use the WDH. Any theories or similar experiences?

BTW, I said before that the ball appears to be a long way back from the rear of the D3. But when I compared it with my brother's Pajero (he also uses a Hayman Reece WDH), I noticed that there's no difference between the amount of tongue that is sticking out of his receiver than what was sticking out of the receiver on the Mitchell Bros towbar. I'm not sure whether this observation helps.

I took some pics of the bar and hitch and will post them in my gallery later.