an old guy told me

[rogngab]

Hi all .an old guy told me last week at a caravan park that his hitch receiver had fallen off resulting in his van crashing onto the road causing all sorts of damage and that i should be made aware and maybe get a hayman reece bolted on to the disco instead of the hang down type supplied can anyone confirm that this has happened or is he full of **** cheers all rog

[101RRS]

There have been other stories of this happening but nothing conclusive.

Garry

[Blknight.aus]

I Know of 2 cases and got to physically eyeball one...

the one that I got eyes on the hitch was still there the ball had failed at the thread. Had the hitch failed there would have been no damage as the chains were hooked up to the same part as the ball.

[Disco4SE]

An old guy told me once that when you hook up the safety chains, cross them left to right, right to left. This way if the trailer / van etc was to come off, it would rest on the chains.
That was when I was 18. Since then I have had two trailers come off and the crossed chains have saved me both times.
Cheers, Craig

[rovers4]

Crossing the chains is at least an official reccomendation here in Tassie, for trailers above 850Kg.

I am pretty shure though that there is an actual requirement.

That aside, there are a lot of trailers/vans being towed that warrant the pracice, getting about uncrossed.

[TerryO]

Right or wrong I was told it is the law here in NSW's that you must cross the chains if you have two fitted.


cheers,
Terry

[Redback]

Another tip is, have the chain at a length that the slide in tongue doesn't slide all the way out, this way if a pin brakes, it won't slide out and your trailer/van/camper won't drop onto the ground.

Baz.

[twr7cx]

Crossing the chains is at least an official reccomendation here in Tassie, for trailers above 850Kg.

I am pretty shure though that there is an actual requirement.

That aside, there are a lot of trailers/vans being towed that warrant the pracice, getting about uncrossed.

I believe it has changed recently and is now required for all new trailers.
Or at least that is the spell at a few places registering trailers when they slog their customers for welding on the second chain.

[CaverD3]

There have been some cases if the hitch failing to stay in. Most likely the pins had not fully connected. Mitchell Bros have supplied some hitches where this has happened but they were also told by LR to remove the mention of it on their web site.

[Discophil]

Not a myth, i had my hitch drop out while towing my 5m boat on the freeway. It was properly locked in, however the tongue mechanism failed. The only way to stop at 100km/hr was to gently apply the brakes and stop the boat by letting it ram into the back windscreen. Luckily there was not other damage.

LR investigated the tow hitch and replaced the whole assembly.

I am always nervous whenever i tow and go over a decent bump...

[CaverD3]

Did LR pay for the damage?

[Discophil]

I had window the replacement extra on my insurance so AAMI replaced it for me for free. It took about 4 months to get a response (and a new hitch) from LR so in the end i could not be bothered taking it any further.