Prado Hayman Reece towbar follow up

I thought I should give you all an update now that I have taken the towbar to the manufacturers head office in Dandenong. I asked why it would have fallen off the car rather than make my own judgement and it was a good way to begin as the Customer Service Manager told me mine was the 4th hayman REece towbar designed for the Prado to come in with the same fault.

It seems the steel used was not of a strength needed for such a tow bar and he informed me it had now been corrected. I asked if they were going to do a recall and he said no, They had informed their distributors and recalled what they had in stock and replaced it. I pointed out that those on the vehicles needed to be recalled or at least warn the Prado owners of the possible weakness. He commented that he didn't think it was worth panicking the whole country. He offered to get rid of my old tow bar but I told him I wanted it for a souvinir, his comment then was "Well don't show too many people."

He did offer me a refund for the cost of the replacement tow bar on receipt of a copy of my receipt. I thanked him and left feeling responsible now for informing the rest of Australia about what I now knew. I have written to the CEO of the company Hayman Reece is incorporated in and told him I will inform consumer Affairs if he does not warn Prado owners that they need to check their tow bars. I suggested he could do this by informing Toyota who could send out the warning as they do for recalls to all Prado owners.

So it was not incorrect fitting as first thought. The tow bar had not been welded either, the metal had broken through but at three different times making the remaining edge look like welding.

I will keep you informed of what transpires from Hayman Reece.

I wrote this in the wrong place originally and since then I have spoken to several people even the police, as knowing there are potentially thousands of caravans which could at any moment come adrift from their tow vehicle is constantly on my mind. I have been advised to notify Consumer Affairs regardless of what Hayman Reece do. So I have done this using their online form which takes 2 weeks to process the web site says. I have also notified my caravan insurance company CiL as in the long run they may be affected too and suggested they tell people to check their tow bars when they send out renewals or other correspondence.

There is another caravanners web site I found too and posted a notice there as well as I found a referrence to a BMW hayman Reece tow bar with a metal weakness and they included photos a link to which I have included below.

Have alook at: http://groups.msn.com/TouringOz/hitches.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=2571

I have taken photos of mine as suggested and have put them on the web at the link below

http://community.webshots.com/album/561466362gzRSRq



Thanks again for all of you who showed an interest in this Forum entry and offered me advice.

Adele