Hi' I'm about to purchase a 2008 Honda CRV ES. I need to fit a tow bar and had planned to do it myself using the dedicated wiring loom. Has anybody fitted their own using the dedicated wiring loom and are there any pitfalls? Many thanks, Dixie
Today’s your lucky day...I fitted the Witter detachable towbar on my 2008 ES CRV this week. Used the 13 pin dedicated kit and being honest took me the best part of 6 hours to fit.
I couldn’t comment on the dedicated 12N / 12S kit as I fitted the 13 pin and used an adaptor in order to future proof myself.
It was quite straight forward to be fair and could probably do it again in about 3 hours.
The worst part was trying to get the bolts into the existing chassis holes, but a few cans of WD40 and several eyefuls of liquid rust later got them in. I found it much easier to remove the rear bumper to improve access as you need to lever the rear exhaust box off the grommets and there is not a lot of working room.
Unless you are built like an Octopus, you will also probably need a second pair of hands to hold the towbar elements in place when attempting to bolt to the chassis.
The wiring loom for the rear was quite simple to install, (plug n play) but did require the removal of all the rear boot trim to get good access and as we’d only had the car a week was quite worrying as you have to literally yank it out!
If you go for the fridge power connection, then it’s trim out all the way along the car and then an exploratory poke through the main rubber grommet through the front bulk head to the battery.
I didn’t need to do any rear bumper drilling, but did shave a very small amount (1-2mm X 5mm) off the very inside/underside of the bumper to keep the shape. To be fair I could have left it, but didn’t want to give the wife any excuse to moan….hope this helps and good luck if you try it.
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