Kennedy
Veteran Member
- Joined
- Jul 22, 2002
- Location
- Fredericksburg, VA
Bought the old lady a motorcycle and needed a way to tote this thing around. I went out on a quest to find a nice towing system and finally settled on the Bosal "AK6" design detachable towbar. Seemed to be the highest quality unit out there with the features I wanted... Stealth, detachable swan neck, and purely bolt on. installation. THAT'S RIGHT, NO DRILLING INTO YOUR TRUNK!
I placed the order with Tony Maris from www.towitall.co.uk, and my towbar was delivered 5 days later!. Here's what it came with. Note the downward facing reciever, the heavy duty detachable swan neck hitch, keys (it's lockable), and hardware. Mine didn't come with any electrics, I still need to call back to the UK and find out if that was accidentially ommited.
To install the towbar, you have to drop the rear bumper cover. This is what's underneath your rear bumper cover. To remove the bumper cover, remove your tailights from inside the trunk (3 bolts), then remove the 2 torx screws under the taillights, 3 three torx screws under the rear valance, and the 4 little torx screws in the fenderwells.
To remove the 5 mph bumper, simply remove the 4 mounting bolts as seen in the picture, and pull it off.
Once the 5 mph bumper is removed, slide the towbar into the bumper mounting point. Don't put it in upside down, the reciever opening needs to be facing the ground.
There seems to be a great debate over removing the 5mph bumper for safety reasons. This thing is beefy, much beefier than the oem 5mph bumper. I don't feel any less safe with this thing installed. In fact, I think the towbar affords more protection due to the extra steel, extra mounting points, and sturdier design. If you are involved in a fender bender you will dent you bumper cover though, as there is nothing supporting the molded abs plastic bumper cover.
To properly mount the towbar, feel around under the frame for soft spots, right near the final exhaust mount and just beyond it. Scrape the undercoat to expose the mounting holes. 2 holes on each side... It's that easy, towbar is mounted. Replace bumper cover and taillights.
Here's the swan neck mounted to the towbar. It pops into place via the knob, then locks.
Note how the mounting point is under the car as opposed to the rear. Very stealty, no receiver hitch sticking out the back.
Sorry, no pic of the ball mounted with bumper cover on, you have to dremel about a 3x5 in. section of underside your lower valance to permit access to the receiver. I need to borrow a dremel...
Check this out...
I think this detachable unit was designed to be OEM, the swan neck fits right right into the OEM foam in the rear.
This unit was quite expensive. The hardware itself was about $350, then another $150 UPS shipping from the UK.
In the group buy I put together, there are other options that are cheaper. Bosal makes two other applications for the Jetta/Golf, all of which mount identically. The only difference is the swan-neck mounting.
-One is the "eco-fit" which is a similar detachable system, but the receiver sticks out of the back of the car like a US spec "draw-tite". It's about $400 delivered.
-The other is a non-detachable unit almost identical to the towsure/brink units seen here on the forums. One of those can be gotten for about $330-$350 from Tony.
Here's the original thread, be sure to read all the way through it for proper descriptions of the bars available and pricing.
http://forums.tdiclub.com/showflat.php?C...part=1&vc=1
Install is easy, 2 beers, 2 hours, some torx bits, and a metric socket set, (oh, and a dremel).
I placed the order with Tony Maris from www.towitall.co.uk, and my towbar was delivered 5 days later!. Here's what it came with. Note the downward facing reciever, the heavy duty detachable swan neck hitch, keys (it's lockable), and hardware. Mine didn't come with any electrics, I still need to call back to the UK and find out if that was accidentially ommited.
To install the towbar, you have to drop the rear bumper cover. This is what's underneath your rear bumper cover. To remove the bumper cover, remove your tailights from inside the trunk (3 bolts), then remove the 2 torx screws under the taillights, 3 three torx screws under the rear valance, and the 4 little torx screws in the fenderwells.
To remove the 5 mph bumper, simply remove the 4 mounting bolts as seen in the picture, and pull it off.
Once the 5 mph bumper is removed, slide the towbar into the bumper mounting point. Don't put it in upside down, the reciever opening needs to be facing the ground.
There seems to be a great debate over removing the 5mph bumper for safety reasons. This thing is beefy, much beefier than the oem 5mph bumper. I don't feel any less safe with this thing installed. In fact, I think the towbar affords more protection due to the extra steel, extra mounting points, and sturdier design. If you are involved in a fender bender you will dent you bumper cover though, as there is nothing supporting the molded abs plastic bumper cover.
To properly mount the towbar, feel around under the frame for soft spots, right near the final exhaust mount and just beyond it. Scrape the undercoat to expose the mounting holes. 2 holes on each side... It's that easy, towbar is mounted. Replace bumper cover and taillights.
Here's the swan neck mounted to the towbar. It pops into place via the knob, then locks.
Note how the mounting point is under the car as opposed to the rear. Very stealty, no receiver hitch sticking out the back.
Sorry, no pic of the ball mounted with bumper cover on, you have to dremel about a 3x5 in. section of underside your lower valance to permit access to the receiver. I need to borrow a dremel...
Check this out...
I think this detachable unit was designed to be OEM, the swan neck fits right right into the OEM foam in the rear.
This unit was quite expensive. The hardware itself was about $350, then another $150 UPS shipping from the UK.
In the group buy I put together, there are other options that are cheaper. Bosal makes two other applications for the Jetta/Golf, all of which mount identically. The only difference is the swan-neck mounting.
-One is the "eco-fit" which is a similar detachable system, but the receiver sticks out of the back of the car like a US spec "draw-tite". It's about $400 delivered.
-The other is a non-detachable unit almost identical to the towsure/brink units seen here on the forums. One of those can be gotten for about $330-$350 from Tony.
Here's the original thread, be sure to read all the way through it for proper descriptions of the bars available and pricing.
http://forums.tdiclub.com/showflat.php?C...part=1&vc=1
Install is easy, 2 beers, 2 hours, some torx bits, and a metric socket set, (oh, and a dremel).