Tow Bar Addition to Calais

[wing_nut]

quote from Holden in Darwin -
parts $545 incl wiring
fitting 320
total 865
the labour sounds a bit high, so I might wait until I visit Melbourne again ...

I was just quoted $1420 to supply and fit a 2100kg towbar from Holden here in QLD

 

[GAMBLR]

Hi, Been down this road. You do not need a Holden Towbar. Go and get a Hayman Reece - they are bettet specs above the standard 1600kg's of the Holden. The real ? is about the rear parking sensors. The "black box" is essetually the same between a HR Loom and a GM loom. The difference is at the male connector where there is a litte magnet which opens/closes a reed switch. When wired in the reversing senors are swortched off when their is a plug in the harness. i.e. the corcuit is opon. When no plug the circuit is cleosd and the reersing sensors work fine. All the towbar setting on the control panel does is move the range out a bit from the boot to make allowances for the towbar. If the bar is set to far out it shall still beep anyway. Narva actauly sell the male plug for swtiching off the rear sensors for about $40. The genuine holden loom is about $150. It is a plug and play operation - exect for idneitfyint the two extra wires to us to connect up the reed switch. If anyine can pioint me to thjose two I'd be very gratreful.

This ^. I have a VZ Calais, and I have to swap connectors to adjust the Park Assist distance with/without the towbar. By the sound of it, the VE has it in the dash - so much easier, but it allows for the towbar being 15-20cm out from the rear. And plugging in a harness will deactivate the Park Assist, because frankly, who wants to hear a constant tone whilst reversing with a trailer on?

 

[Thumpin]

#### me. cost price for a genuine holden bar is around 360 . what a mark up

Yep, that's for the 1600kg towbar only. For the complete kit, which includes wiring harness (with voltage converter), tow ball, cover, rear bar escution (a trim that covers the hole edge you cut) is about $540 trade price.
Its cheaper than the equivalent Hayman Reece and the HR harness is cheapish.

The GM towbar is heavy duty and weighs 30KG. The labour costs are a bit high but you could justify them if the effort was put in to fit the towbar absolutely perfectly. This would be something I would suspect the dealers don't do.
If your handy, you can fit it yourself. I must warn though that if you are not familiar with how things are held together on modern VE's, I would get somebody to fit the for you.
I fitted the towbar to my SSV and even though the job is fairly straight forward, its fiddly and things can be broken very easily. Understanding how the plastic clipping holds things together, ie: rear bumper, inside panels, etc, is invaluable to allow you to remove them without destroying things.

 

[EraserHead]

The 2100kg tow pack is expensive as it includes load levellers and the big coupling thingo. $1420 is a good price. I got this on my car and paid more than that...

 

[mmcalaisv]

I have installed a Heavy Duty Holden towbar to my Calais V at home in the driveway.
Very simple process as I used the genuine GM loom. It comes with an excellent set of instructions that are very thorough and detailed.
The only hole that needs to be drilled is in the plastic wheel tub so you can feed the wire through to the plug, and two small ones on the under side of the bumper to mount the bracket for the electrical plug.
Whole process only took about 2 hours, but it could be done in about 1 hour if you know what you are doing, and have someone to hold your beer for you.

 

[bdc74]

I have just done this too. I bought a Trail (something like king or boss!) from ebay. Got the whole lot delivered to Vic with ECU and wiring for $525 and fitted it myself. Took me around 3 hrs cos I have never removed a bumper bar before so I wanted to do it slowly! The instructions provided were crap cos they kept telling me to look for wires and stuff when all I had to do was use the plug that is taped up alongside the loom to the RHS brake light behind the 12v socket in my wagon. Bar bolted in with 4 bolts - 2 newly supplied 100mm bolts and 2 original 100mm bolts. I used a Dremmel to cut out the "cutout" section in the bar and used a sander on the Dremmel to smooth it out. I got the 7 pin flat plug and instead of mounting it to one side like most do, I mounted directly underneath the hitch reciever to keep it a bit neater.

The setting in the dash only serves to tell the sensors to add about 10cm or so to its range so instead of the red bars showing you ar 30cm from an object from the rear of your car, it tells it when you are 30cm from the towbar now!
Easy.