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Congrats to James (and Mrs James) on the safe arrival of number 3.
Thanks Steve!
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Modern vehicles now have the warranty invalidated if tow bars are non factory/dealer fitted.
Sorry Karlos but that is not correct, as longs as the fitted towbar is type approved and is fitted to the manufacturer's mounting points it will not invalidate your warranty.
"Directive 94/20/EC was introduced as part of European Whole Vehicle Type Approval to provide a common standard throughout the European Community, thus creating an open market. Irrespective of where a towbar has been manufactured, providing it has been Type Approved, a customer will know that it has been manufactured to a known technical and quality standard. 94/20/EC was designed to create free trade. If you fit a Type Approved towbar it will not invalidate the vehicle warranty. Under EC Block Exemption Rules a motor vehicle manufacturer cannot prevent a franchised outlet from supplying or fitting components deemed to be of equal quality to that supplied by the vehicle manufacture - such as a Type Approved towbar."
Source: Witter Towbars
http://www.witter-towbars.co.uk/towbars ... ards5.php#
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They have to have software updates to recalibrate breaking control systems, stability control, reversing sensors, etc, as towing something can make the car do weird things if the control systems have not been reprogrammed.
This depends on the car involved. Our Honda Civic would have had its reversing sensors deactivated (if it had them) I just fitted a plug and play third party unit. On both the Honda and Audi there were no 'trailer stability programmes' (I checked with the dealer), so not technically necessary to have the unit coded but just annoying when you reverse! The Skoda had some sort of stability programme. The Land Rover however, needs to have the Trailer Stability Assist programme and camera thingys and a load of other things activated as well so it makes sense for this to be activated,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gyc4Dmgbew on both occasions I had this done by a specialist at a quarter of the cost of a dealer. As the software hasn't been altered a dealer would be none the wiser.
If you fit in a non manufacturer wiring harness and it damages the vehicles existing harness then logic dictates that will not be covered under the vehicle manufacturer's warranty and would be covered by the harness manufacturers warranty subject to conditions etc....