Upgrade to Mitch Hitch or stick with standard D4 hitch

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Originally Posted by garrycol

Exactly - never heard of a Mitchell Bros tow bar breaking - as usual Damink does tend to get confused - the pic he is referring to is a D3 OEM hitch which he replaced with a Mitchell Bros tow bar.

Never heard anything negative about the Mitchell Bros tow bar - if fact nothing but praise.

The other thing is that the Mitchell Bros tow bar is Aust Certified and carries the label - does the cheap versions? Where are the cheap ones made?

Garry

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I have to go back there in a day or 2. I will take a pic of the unit for you. Not sure of the brand, although i did not think i mentioned brand...

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Originally Posted by garrycol

They look like a knock off of the Mitchell Bros tow bar - Mitchell Bros do all the design work and then someone else takes that design - modifies it slightly without having to do the R&D.

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Yes that's it exactly but charging over $700 for a couple of bits of metal welded together is highway robbery IMO, $100 materials ( way over actual cost ) $300 labor, 2 hours at 150/hour or 3 hours for a chimp getting paid $22, $200 on top of the material and labor profits for the boss to line his pockets and its still 130 cheaper than what they charge.[bighmmm]

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Originally Posted by garrycol

They look like a knock off of the Mitchell Bros tow bar - Mitchell Bros do all the design work and then someone else takes that design - modifies it slightly without having to do the R&D.

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I spoke to the owner of them a while ago about this,,, there's a little more to it than that,, he was just a tad cranky over the situation to put it mildly.

Cranky? - cranky because his good idea is worth copying.... or cranky because he knows nothing about applying for a patent?
Henry Ford must have been a very very angry man - everyone copied his idea! Pesky car manufacturers.
I'm not feeling sorry for a fabricator being cranky because he forgot to apply good business principles in his business. Its all about employing people and sub-contractors and consultants to do that sort of thing for you if you have no idea yourself. Put it down to experience. I see this everyday with people coming to me with new ideas. The first question I ask them is "are you going o patent the idea? If you are I don't want to hear about it until you do".
And I agree with Discojeffster - if it wasn't worth patenting, then it isn't worth the tears.
Matti

I’ve got no idea if he had a patent or not,, as I said, there’s more to the story than someone just copying a design.

Dont patents last a long time? 10 years or something?
I dont recall seeing these sort of things that long ago. Couple of years is all...
First one of these i seen was a mc hitch on tv. Seemed like a really good unit and thats why i investigated it further.

Patent or not our Asian neighbours don't care , plenty of copies on eBay from China and Taiwan.

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Originally Posted by loanrangie

Patent or not our Asian neighbours don't care , plenty of copies on eBay from China and Taiwan.

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Of a Mitch hitch? I highly doubt it. We’re not talking iPhones here lol.
I agree that China will knock things off and there are avenues to deal with that, but realistically that’s well off topic. A Mitch hitch is not going to become a Chinese second unless it’s at the request of a local firm who we can file a patent restraint upon etc.

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Originally Posted by DiscoJeffster

Of a Mitch hitch? I highly doubt it. We’re not talking iPhones here lol.
I agree that China will knock things off and there are avenues to deal with that, but realistically that’s well off topic. A Mitch hitch is not going to become a Chinese second unless it’s at the request of a local firm who we can file a patent restraint upon etc.

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Check them out, pretty close to a mh in design.

I have never seen a cheap Asian copy, and I have been looking for a 2nd hand or cheaper option for 12 months now. All the Chinese stuff is very different and bolts on where the chain attachments are not onto the recovery hitch like the ones available here so will hang down similar to the standard hitch