Thread: D4 hitch - I think - lugs broke off

Happens with Prados, too.

This a friend's Prado hitch:

This picture shows the failure pretty well. I would have liked to see the angle and size of the shackles used. The failure angle suggests they put a large bending load on the ears and broke them off.

View image: photo 2

I would have thought that there was enough evidence for the appropriate authorities to do a recall on all D3/D4/RRS because of this tow arrangement.

On this site we have heard of the plow falling out of the socket - once with a van attached as it pulled into a garage and another where the plow has just fallen out. In addition there was a recent case where the plow failed due to an old crack in the casting.

Now we have the area of the actual plow socket that the safety chains connect to have failed. Now I have a Mitch Hitch fitted to my vehicle but those holes in the casting are those that the Mitch Hitch actually bolts too, however the load is shared by both holes, the plow socket and the recovery point so no one point will have the load that a break away van would place on one or both safety chains.

I think this should be a worry to anyone who tows heavy trailers or vans.

Garry

If the chains weren't crossed they (the lugs) may have been broken off by sharp turns before the van uncoupled.

The green lever looks as though its been pulled to the left by an uncrossed chain rather than just pulled back by a flying chain.

Like a few of us on here I have a Mitch Hitch, when installing it I had a good think about how much pressure that the two bolts that fix it through those same holes put on a cast fitting ? especially if it did not sit quite flat which mine did fortunately.
But I still don't like cast in these situations the shock load of a van taking up the slack in the chains I imagine would be pretty high !

DD

Plus, the author of the original post indicated that it took 5 people to get the van onto the tow ball???

I wonder what the downward force on the towball was? For the van to become decoupled from the hitch also.....something was really wrong.
But I must agree one of the reasons I fitted a Mitch htich from the start was I just didn't have faith in the factory hitch would handle excess force of a camper trailer. My camper weighs in around 1000kg. Plus it was too low to the gbround, so the Mitch Hitch is just right.

Originally Posted by Graeme

If the chains weren't crossed they (the lugs) may have been broken off by sharp turns before the van uncoupled.

It doesn't matter - those safety chain points should be able to restrain up to 3.5t of wildly swinging trailer is just about all conditions.

Garry

Says a lot about cast chassis components! A rolled steel item would have deformed and not fractured like that.



When you feel the component size, it is pretty pathetic. I'll be looking for alternative points and barring that I'll be adding an additional connection to the much stronger recovery point.

Just had another look and am pretty sure you could fit eye bolts directly to the chassis just outside where the OEM fittings are mounted, without reducing ground clearance or preventing the cover fitting on.