Hi,hope you can help.
Was just driving home from a long weekend in the van when I heard a sort of ping/double beep in the car. I then noticed when indicating the beeping noise had stopped. I pulled over to check the cables were still connected to the tow bar and it was fine. But the electrics between the car and van have gone. No indicators or brake lights in the van. I have no idea where to start. Is it likely to be at the car/towbar end or the caravan?
The first place to start is with the car towbar socket. Use a multimeter to check you have power from the various pins, google for 12n wiring diagram, so you know which is what, earths etc. This will tell you whether problem is with car or caravan. You do need a bit of basic knowledge to sort this, if you don't then take it to somebody who does.
To find out if it's a fuse in the car or caravan you need to do what Billy x has advised. If there is no power at the towing socket it's obviously going to be a blown fuse in the car. If you have got power at the towing socket then it will be the fuse in the caravan.
Quote: Originally posted by mjjones17 on 10/8/2015
the eon,
I had exact same issue in April and luckily enough it was as simple as the fuse had blown that supplied the electrics to he caravan.
Fuses should not blow for no reason. Very rarely you will get a dodgy fuse that will just give up, but mostly it is a more serious problem, as indicated by your post.
There should be 3 fuses in the battery compartment to supply the 13-pin towing electrics for a caravan, not one. One fuse is for the caravan lights, one for the fridge, and one for the caravan battery charging/ATC.
There is a fairly common problem with cheap towbar wiring jobs, where they only run one feed cable to the back of the car from the battery and use only one fuse. Generally this feed wire and fuse is underrated for the possible demand, and yes, running your fridge may be just the thing to have overloaded the wiring.
If this is the case, the sensible thing is to get the car's towbar wiring replaced with a decent 3 feed wire/fuse system. The alternative is the possibility of the wiring overheating.
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Topic: Towing Electrics just stopped?
