VE SS: Tow hitch
As I’m sure I mentioned previously, when we originally bought the VE Commodore, it didn’t come with a towbar. When we moved, I had Dad tow the trailer around, and I figured that I would sell it and just rent a ute whenever we needed to move something. Honestly, this hasn’t worked out at all, there’s been numerous times I’ve wanted to shift something, and I’ve either balked at the cost (about $75/pop) or by the time I thought about organizing it the opportunity was gone (ie some really cheap workout equipment Sabriena would have loved).
So a while back we asked our mechanic Terry to quote on putting a towbar on… we didn’t end up going through with it, but a bit over a month ago I asked him to update it again and we went ahead. It was slightly more expensive than originally quoted, due to a few factors: prices have gone up for everything in general, he wasn’t able to find a used one anymore so we’d have to buy brand new, and I wanted to get a “heavy duty” one instead for the simple reason that they’re easily removable.
The last point is huge: instead of a big hitch poking out the back of the car we’d bash our shins on constantly, we have a small square opening sticking out maybe an inch past the bumper - much less likely to collide with someone’s bony bits. When we want to tow something, we slide it in, push the large pin through, and push a small cotter pin through that, and then hook everything up.
Anyway, I’m four paragraphs deep and haven’t gotten to the point yet: about a week ago, he finished up with it. I’m super-impressed with the job, it’s all very clean and it automatically shuts off the back-up sensors when a trailer’s lights are connected. But this means we have a working trailer now, so we can start getting things done that we want!
Unfortunately, the day I was going to drop it off I noted that we were due a service, which added to the price once again. They also noted that our rear tyres, particularly the left-hand one, were no longer in the “we’ll want to replace them soon” zone and rapidly approaching the “could get a ticket if pulled over” zone. So I organized to get them changed out this weekend, even further inflating the vehicular spending this month.
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