Thread: D4 hitch - I think - lugs broke off

I am now pretty concerned.
I tow a triple axle horse float, with a tonne of meat....3.5 tonnes in total.
If the hitch brakes, there will be plenty of dog food...and a very distraught wife.
Will a Mitch hitch be a stronger option for me ?

Brett....

Originally Posted by discotwinturbo

I am now pretty concerned.
I tow a triple axle horse float, with a tonne of meat....3.5 tonnes in total.
If the hitch brakes, there will be plenty of dog food...and a very distraught wife.
Will a Mitch hitch be a stronger option for me ?

Brett....

Me too, am very concerned.

The mitch hitch apparently bolts to the same fitting that broke.

So my plan is to look into the eye bolts bolted through the rear cross member with a reinforcing plate on the top side.

I think a lot of us probably are !

Anyone have the HR towbar fitted (the one they told me they don't make when I was looking) ? Where do they have their safety chains ?
I need the extra height the Mitch gives me so not much help.

DD



[QUOTE=Lotz-A-Landies;1670284]Me too, am very concerned.

The mitch hitch apparently bolts to the same fitting that broke.

Can someone post a picture of these not-broken from the same angle as the broken picture?

Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies

Me too, am very concerned.

The mitch hitch apparently bolts to the same fitting that broke.

So my plan is to look into the eye bolts bolted through the rear cross member with a reinforcing plate on the top side.

It bolts to the recovery point, which is a rated recovery point, I would imagine should cope better with shock loads, the Mitch Hitch is also engineered and rated to 3500kg, none have failed so far, unlike the D3 hitch and now the D4 factory hitch.

Besides it's the saftey chain anchor points that broke not the hitch itself.

Baz.

Unlike the original LR hitch the Mitch Hitch has two coupling points and looking at it from a laymans perspective the top one would greatly reduce the down strain on the lower one which is the one that failed in this instance.

As soon as I looked at the origial D3 hitch when I bought the old girl the first thing I did was buy a Mitch Hitch and having used it many times I have 100% more confidence in it than the original.

In this instance I'd be surprized if the chains weren't adjusted to short, he said he had gone around a tight corner and just after it failed and the caravan disconnected from the Disco. Having said that it is not good enough that it failed in the way it did.

cheers,
Terry

Originally Posted by TerryO

Unlike the original LR hitch the Mitch Hitch has two coupling points and looking at it from a laymans perspective the top one would greatly reduce the down strain on the lower one which is the one that failed in this instance.

As soon as I looked at the origial D3 hitch when I bought the old girl the first thing I did was buy a Mitch Hitch and having used it many times I have 100% more confidence in it than the original.

In this instance I'd be surprized if the chains weren't adjusted to short, he said he had gone around a tight corner and just after it failed and the caravan disconnected from the Disco. Having said that it is not good enough that it failed in the way it did.

cheers,
Terry

LR will try with all it's might to get out of paying for the repairs to the van in the warrenty claim, they'll probably say the van is not a LR approved accessory

I'd agree that the van was not correctly attached. The chains don't appear to have been crossed, the cable for the emergency braking system was incorrectly attached, and it sounds like the towball receiver wasn't clamped.

The safety wire should be looped through the central recovery point (which is completely isolated from the towing assembly) - in fact I attach my chains there as well.

The OP changes the original scenario to suggest that the van decoupled _after_ the steep hairpin, so in reality (as he was going uphill) we don't know how long he drove the car with the van hanging on the safety chains. Then decelerating/accelerating to get up the following hill. If he'd exceeded the ball weight (which one of the posters suggests), that would be some force on the eyelets! I'm not surprised they broke.

Cheers,

Gordon