Help with Tow Bar please?

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gilberto

Active Member
Joined
Mar 14, 2006
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Does anyone have any experience of retro fitting a tow bar on a GLC?
Dealer tells me it can only be done by Mercedes dealer as a special fan has to be fitted as well. Total cost £2.5k
If not done this way warranty would be invalidated,does anyone know if this is correct or can suggest any other options?
Thank you.
 
Always find these topics of interest. Does your handbook state maximum capacity for towing? If so, does it highlight or asterisk that you may need additional cooling equipment? If not and you told your dealer you may be towing, have they sold you a car under false pretences? The brochure states it can tow 2500kg for a diesel, show that to your MB dealer and ask them to explain.
 
If not and you told your dealer you may be towing, have they sold you a car under false pretences? The brochure states it can tow 2500kg for a diesel, show that to your MB dealer and ask them to explain.

Nice one.....^...........................^

Dealer sucks in air through his teeth and then engages the bullshit area of his brain for a response.
His reply will no doubt cause some hilarity.

Steve
 
There's been quite a lot of discussion about this topic on line for several years now-its not something that particular dealer made up. Its possibly more to do with transmission cooling rather than engine cooling per se. Whereas in the UK Climate cooling may be "adequate " its possible that cover themselves for warmer countries MB insist on this cooling mod. A major part of the cost will be labour at MB dealer rates rather than parts alone- could see the entire front assembly/ bumper possibly having to come off. It might be worth investigating the cost via an MB recognised specialist with bona fide parts- labour would be considerably cheaper and should not invalidate your warranty?
 
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I find it hard to believe that a car would need an additional cooling fan to be able to tow. I have towed with cars for years, boats and horse trailers, and never had to worry about cooling, as the only real time it would be a load on the engine is pulling away.
I fitted tow bar to the ML, no issues, all fittings were there, bit of cutting of the bumper, all in about £100.
 
There's been quite a lot of discussion about this topic on line for several years now-its not something that particular dealer made up. Its possibly more to do with transmission cooling rather than engine cooling per se. Whereas in the UK Climate cooling may be "adequate " its possible that cover themselves for warmer countries MB insist on this cooling mod. A major part of the cost will be labour at MB dealer rates rather than parts alone- could see the entire front assembly/ bumper possibly having to come off. It might be worth investigating the cost via an MB recognised specialist with bona fide parts- labour would be considerably cheaper and should not invalidate your warranty?
Thank you
 
I have just come across this issue with our newly arriving E Class Cab (A238 type) and confirm it is true - the cooling system needs an upgrade.

When we pick our car up we will be taking it out to Germany (permanently) so need to get the rear foglight swapped over and I thought get the team doing the coding for me (the excellent Richard at Comand OnLine) to code it for towbar electrics as we thought we would put a towbar on it (mainly for bikes, but also for towing our caravan as the weights are all good) in time. He said there was no issue to code but asked me if I was aware we would likely need to upgrade to the cooling system? I too was surprised as I thought this sort of thing had ceased years ago; queue some internet research which resulted in me gleaning that (verified by MB garage here in Germany) cars which leave the factory without a towbar fitted are only fitted with a 450w cooling fan but when fitted with a towbar at the factory have an upgraded fan fitted with near 600w power. I looked on e-bay and found a 2nd hand "upgrade" fan which was about €150, so it must be true!

MB UK don't offer a factory fitted towbar for this car [which they do in other markets...] so one has to go down the road of after market fitment. Having researched 3 aftermarket bars for this car they too do not mention anything about cooling upgrades. There is no mention of it in any sales literature. Indeed the current price list says kerb weight 1830kg and towing limit 1800kg (with the usual blurb about gradients and altitude that all manufacturers right) with absolutely no mention of any upgrades required. Having read the German pricelist I can confirm this is the same situation in Germany.

I did have an ML in 2007 (W164) and I fitted a bar to that, and didn't have any issue with cooling and was towing a 1900kg over Austrian passes.

I suspect I will still fit a towbar and limit ourselves to bikes (initially) and then play it by ear whether we decide to tow our caravan or not. The price quoted by your MB agent will involve a good few hours "book" labour to remove the existing fan. The cheapest I have found a fully detachable/hidden towbar for my car with car specific plug and play (with coding) 13 pin is €380.
 
So, its engine cooling not transmission cooling, have i got that right !
So whats to stop someone fitting something like a kenlow fan unit to help cooling
 
cars which leave the factory without a towbar fitted are only fitted with a 450w cooling fan but when fitted with a towbar at the factory have an upgraded fan fitted with near 600w power.

I thought initially this would be fuel/emissions thing (a lower rated fan taking less power), but of course the fan only runs when needed so it shouldn't make any difference. Presumably a smaller fan motor is cheaper and a bit lighter though.
 
The cooling fan involved appears to be the engine one. However there are several radiators at the front of the modern Mercedes.
ENGINE
TRANSMISSION
AIR CONDITIONING
INTERCOOLER
The extent to which all these rely on the main engine fan at high load+low road speed remains unclear.
Aftermarket parts would probably be perfectly adequate if required but I think the point of concern is whether the owner might lose their factory warranty cover if bonafide parts were not fitted by an MB dealer??
 
Don't know what the reason (defies the normal German logic in my mind), however, I have this from a PM contact on another forum I belong to for my DS. His son is a technical engineer for Mercedes (in Stuttgart) and happened to be with bloke who is one of their prototype car cooling engineers and (in respect of the A238 at least) confirmed " there is no factory fitted tow bar then the vehicles main radiator cooling fan has to be upgraded".

Guess the radiators are all OK, its just they need more air drawing through them for towing to maintain a constant temperature??? Of course different models may need different levels of tweaking (I asked him specifically about A238 because that's what I am getting) but the fan I saw on ebay said it was for W211, W212 and W213 cars.

At least we chose the factory fitted option on our Estate....
 
I have owned my caravan from 2004 which weighs in at 1400kg MAM usually running at about 1350kg. I have towed this with after market tow bars fitted, behind an E300 diesel Class estate W210, at S Class 320 petrol and currently a B180Cdi none of which I have fitted any additional cooling fans and have had no problems. I do wonder if MB, and others, are just trying to "up sale"
 
I’ve towed a caravan for several years and never fitted any additional cooling fans to my cars.
Having said that I do keep an eye on temperatures when towing which was rather difficult with my last tow car, a Jaguar XF as it did not have a temperature guage on it.
One thing I do like on my CLS is the fact that I can monitor engine oil temperature along with water temperature.
When towing though it’s best to keep an extra eye on temperatures especially if travelling in extremely hot conditions and after that long pull up some of our steep hills.
 

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