** DOES ANYONE TOW WITH A TOUAREG??? BIG PROBLEM! **

[MagicMelon]

Fed up big time! We bought a 3l Touareg which is to be used for towing our Bateson trailer (to replace our old Terrano). The Touareg came with a detachable tow bar. We tried towing twice with it and it was horrific - there is a horrible banging noise coming from somewhere which sounds like underneath where the tow bar would be fixed on.
We've ruled out any problems with the trailer as it tows perfectly with the Terrano.

We've had this issue checked by FIVE different people so far! Its been with our local Volkswagen dealership for the past few days - they said that with a detachable tow bar then yes it can make a little bit of noise however the mechanic who came with us to hear it from himself admitted it was ridiculous. SOOOO.... yesterday we had the detachable one removed and a brand new permanent one fitted! (£450 which I am demanding VW pay for). Took it out for a test drive just now and IT STILL MAKES THE SAME NOISE!!!!!!!

We are at our witts end now as we cannot use it the way it is! We have no idea what to do now! We dont know if its a Touareg problem full stop so does ANYONE tow with one???????

 

[f_s_]

Sorry, can't help, tow with a 3LTR Terrano!!!

Have you tried ringing round some of the other VW dealers?

Unfortunately, I find dealers useless when it comes to towing questions, think they are not used to being asked these sort of questions as a lot of these cars are bought to do school runs!!!

Good luck, I hope you give them hell, get them to pay, and sort the problem out!

 

[SNORKEY]

Hi, we have a detachable tow bar, it has never made a noise, is the car tough enough to tow the weight?

 

[1928sky]

Sorry to hear of your experiences and can't really help with that one as don't have a touareg- have you tried maybe a car forum to see if they could shed some light on it?
If they are anything like toyota- good luck! Had a landcruiser with automatic gear box problems which they told us needed £1500 of work to fix and still had the same problem afterwards- eventually on taking it to another dealership someone found some dirt in one of the mechanisms and once cleaned- perfect! Toyota blamed taking it off road as the problem - uh duh its a 4x4!

 

[Fizzimyst]

It might be worth doing a google search for a Toureg forum and seeing if the people on there have any ideas.

All the work on my Frontera has been done via the people on the Frontera Owners Group and the knowlege between them is amazing and saved me a hell of a lot of money

xx

 

[Cliqmo]

I'm not sure if it was you I wrote in response to the other day? There was someone who posted about this same problem!
As I suggested to them it is likely to be a tiny difference in height between the Bateson trailer hitch and the height of the towing ball on the back of the car. The lady I posted to the other day didn't seem to want to believe me, but what I would recommend doing (if only to eliminate this as the problem) is loading up the front of the trailer (with hay bales?) to make it front heavy. This will ensure the trailer is firmly sat on the towing ball of the car and then you can see if that stops the noise? Alternatively hitch the empty trailer on and give the hitch a really good pull and shove (up and down) to see if this causes the same metal knocking noise. Unfortunately if this is the problem I don't know how to cure it

 

[JessPickle]

Did some googling

http://www.automotix.net/autorepair/car_problems/326089-complaint/

 

[archoak]

A friend tows with a touareg (her husband works for Volkswagen) and don't think she had any problems. Her daughter comes on here as Quickstar, you could try PMing her.

 

[Tinypony]

Or... something is broken in the chassis member. OH the car mechanic says that any good dealership will have a Chassis Ear, this is a listening device that has 4 leads with transducers on each lead, which are connected under the vehicle and routed to a box inside. The mechanic listens to each of them through a pair of headphones. This can be used to find any noise on the vehicle.
Howzat?

He says something like a suspension bush would probably only show up when the car was under duress, as in towing a heavy load.
If they've fitted a £450 tow bar because they couldn't identify a completely separate problem, then you are probably owed a refund!

 

[Madasmaz]

Hiya.

I gound a really good website when the heater packed up on my fiesta right at the coldest point this year. I think it is www.honestjohn.co.uk

I managed to not only work out what was wrong, but also fix it...who needs a man

Anyway, give it a go, it may have something. You could also take a look to see if there is an owners club. Amazed you are having trouble as they managed to tow a boeing 747 with one...its on youtube.

 

[wizzi901]

sounds like either a fundamental build issue or difference in height between trailer and vehicle, we used to have a little issue with this which drove me nuts, was sorted out by adjusting the towbar height....??