dipstick0_0 Posted April 18, 2012 Share Posted April 18, 2012 Hello to everyone can you help with some advice please I am looking to buy a used tow a car A frame I beleive it would involve fitting a custom made bracket to my car that will attach to the A frame question is can I do this myself or do I require a tow a car agent to fit it If I do require an agent is there one in the Plymouth area hope you can make sense of this post regards alan :$ (?) *-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Newell Posted April 18, 2012 Share Posted April 18, 2012 Hi Dipstick and welcome. The problem is we don't know what your abilities are so can't realistically comment on whether you could fit the bracketry yourself, some people can, some can't and this applies to all sorts of things, some people are great cooks while some could burn water. D. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keithl Posted April 18, 2012 Share Posted April 18, 2012 Alan, Be careful buying second hand as there are very many different makes of A-frame and, as a recent poster has found out Link, fitters will only fit their own make if supplied second hand due to the risk of being sued if something goes wrong later. Keith. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest peter Posted April 18, 2012 Share Posted April 18, 2012 If you need to ask whether you can fit it or not, then I would suggest that you cannot. It's too important to suck it and see. If your'e not confident that you can do it (never mind the legalities) then I'd leave it to a proffesional and you will have the peace of mind and if it goes tit's up then you have recourse to the fitter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
w1ntersun Posted April 19, 2012 Share Posted April 19, 2012 I have a towtal a-frame and if you want it for a small charge please pm me Richard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted April 19, 2012 Share Posted April 19, 2012 dipstick0_0 - 2012-04-18 8:17 PM Hello to everyone can you help with some advice please I am looking to buy a used tow a car A frame I beleive it would involve fitting a custom made bracket to my car that will attach to the A frame question is can I do this myself or do I require a tow a car agent to fit it If I do require an agent is there one in the Plymouth area hope you can make sense of this post regards alan :$ (?) *-) I don't believe there are any UK regulations preventing you from DIY-ing an attachment for your car that would permit it to be towed on an A-frame, but you'd need to inform your insurance provider of the modifications you'd made and your provider might well want to confirm your 'professional' bilities. I still have John Wickersham's 2007 MMM 5-page article that describes a typical A-frame installation, including the necessary car-related modfifications. If you send me a PM with an e-mail address, I could send you a copy of the article. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dipstick0_0 Posted April 19, 2012 Author Share Posted April 19, 2012 Many thanks for all your comments and thoughts I have now bought a tow a car A frame will wait for it to arrive then I can have a look and see whats involved and take it from there Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clive Posted April 20, 2012 Share Posted April 20, 2012 I would not use any A frame system that relied on a cable to pull on the service brake in a car that normally has power assisted brakes - and that's most of them! Be very wary. They are already illegal in France and Spain and there is no reason to expect that this will not spread to the rest of Europe including the UK. C. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest peter Posted April 20, 2012 Share Posted April 20, 2012 Why is that Clive?. If it's good enough for a one ton plus caravan, it's surely good enough for a small one ton car. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted April 21, 2012 Share Posted April 21, 2012 Caravans don't have power-assisted brakes but all small cars likely to be towed on an A-frame by a motorhome do. When a car's power-assisted brakes aren't functioning - as will be the case when a car is towed via an A-frame using an inertia-braking system (which most braked A-frames have) - the A-frame's brake-operating cable will need to pull very hard on the car's brake pedal to get the car's brakes to perform even reasonably well. Effective braking of the car was highlighted by a VOSA spokesman as something potentially difficult to obtain with an inertia-braked A-frame. In practice I suspect this doesn't matter much. The car's braking is spread across its four wheels and an inertia-braked A-frame should be able to provide a hefty pull on the car's brake-pedal. The significant thing though is that any motorhome capable of towing a car will be pretty heavy and, consequently, won't stop quickly even if its brakes are savagely applied. Most of the time a motorhome + car combination will be braked judiciously and the relatively limited MAXIMUM braking performance of the towed car's brakes won't be an issue. If the motorhome has to make an emergency stop and the towed car's braking then proves unable to match the motorhome's (ie. the car starts to 'push' the motorhome) then that's tough luck. If I had to choose between emergency-stopping a 3-tonne motorhome A-frame-towing an inertia braked 1-tonne car, or emergency-braking a 1.5tonne car towing a 1-tonne caravan, I'd opt for the former. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clive Posted April 21, 2012 Share Posted April 21, 2012 Derek gives the basic reasons very well. But Just imagine an emergency stop scenario when some wazark puts themselves in harms way by pulling out in front of you. Their fault for sure but do you really want the agro or even worse their death on your conscience knowing that you could have spend a bit more and had a system that enables the towed vehicles brakes to apply as effectively as the motorhomes. Personally I like A frames if engineered properly but many of the older types are simply not up to the job when it comes to braking. Even some of the modern ones have half an idea but do not implement it very well, but a few are good. All the same I fear they will become illegal in the UK within 5 years which is when we may want to use one ourselves. C. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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