Towbar

What is the towbar ?

The towbar is an essential piece of equipment for supplying electricity to your trailer to operate its lights. This equipment takes the form of a box designed to synchronise the lights of the towing vehicle with those of the trailer's rear light.
If you have a standard trailer, a 7-pin system will suffice to relay the various basic functions : indicators, brake lights and fog lights from the vehicle to the trailer.
If you are towing a caravan, however, you will need a 13-pin connection to provide all the basic functions as well as reversing lights and a permanent 12V supply.

Normal and multiplexed harness

The power supply is unique to each type of vehicle, so it is essential to choose the right model to avoid any electrical malfunction.
The first thing to check before choosing your towbar is whether or not your vehicle is multiplexed.

To do this, simply remove one of the bulbs from the rear of your vehicle and check whether the on-board computer indicates this.
If it does, it means that your vehicle is indeed multiplexed! If it is not, you will not have to worry about the choice of towbar and its installation. It doesn't matter whether it's a standard or a special harness, you can simply plug it into the rear of the vehicle in the appropriate slot.

To summarise :

On a normal towbar harness, you only need to take power from the wires that supply the bulbs on the rear light blocks.
With a multiplexed towbar, however, the vehicle's electronics control the operation of the trailer lights. It is therefore imperative to connect the towbar to the place provided by the manufacturer and not to the rear lights, as this could cause the on-board computer to malfunction!