The need to move my dormant MG Midget from its lockup garage to a new storage place prompted me to fit a towbar to my Mk IV Golf. I didn't want to have the towball permanently on show so a after a bit of trawling round the small ads I picked up a hardly used removeable version from a chap who'd sold on his car. This was one of the ones sold through VW as original equipment and came with a plug in wiring harness to suit the car so I was hoping for a neat installation. With the ball removed, all but the bottom 1/4" of the tow bracket is hidden behind the bumper and the electrics hinge up out of the way.

VW factory type towbar - fixed and removed

Fitting was similar to my old MkII, except that it was much harder to find all the fastenings. First thing to do was remove the bumper, which first requires removal of the mudflaps and the rear lights as each of these conceal the bumper bolts. Mudflaps were easy, as were lights except the fastenings differ from side to side. On the right hand, the lens is held in by three nuts and a push in fastening at the frontmost corner (A); on the left hand there are two visible nuts and a third nut (B) which is hidden in the inner wing and accessed via a hole behind the wiring harness - VWs little idea of a joke perhaps?

With the lights removed, undo two torx screws on the bottom of the valance, three fixings on the rear edge of each wheelarch, two torx screws on the top surface of the bumper where the lights were and a centre push pin fastening at each top front corner. Locate and undo the connector for the number plate lights inside the left hand wing, and the bumper shell then lifts away.

Left hand light fixings - Bumper removed ready to fit towbar - Right hand light fixings

Next the reinforcing bar behind the bumper is unbolted to be replaced by the towbar bracket. The holes for the towbar are in the wheelarches, taped up and covered in underseal. The tip to find them is to measure the distance from the back of the bracket to each bolt with it off the car, then measure the same distance on the car and gently poke with a screwdriver or similar until you can feel where the holes are, then push it to pierce the tape and peel off. It is just about possible to do this with the wheels on and wheel arch liners in place. The left side is the hardest as the exhaust gets in the way as well.

With the bar bolted firmly in place (sorry - forgot to take a picture!), the wires for the electrics go through the grommet (X) in the centre just under the boot latch. It's easier to remove the inner trim panel - just pull it off, working round the edges.

Towbar wiring harness

The wiring for the harness once inside the boot is as follows: Plug 'A' goes to the left hand light cluster, in series with the existing wiring. Plug 'B' goes to the right hand light cluster, in series with the existing wiring. Blue relay 'C' is mounted anywhere convenient inside the right hand inner wing. Long wire 'D' must go to a permanent live - the easiest place is the connector for the 12v socket in the boot.

The bar requires a cut-out in bottom of the valance. Helpfully the required size is already marked by VW on the inside so I just drilled out the holes at the corners and joined them up with a power saw using a fine blade so it cut neatly. Once this is done, refit the bumper (don't forget the number plate light), rear lights, mudflaps and trim panels and you're ready to tow.

Check your handbook for towing weight limits. My TDI 130 is rated at 1500 kg max, so here we are with 700kg of MG, 500kg of Brian James trailer and a few extra kg of Elise clamshells. I was a little apprehensive initially but I was careful to position the MG to get about 50kg of nose weight on the hitch and it all towed very nicely - on the motorway with the cruise control set to 60mph you'd hardly know it was there!

All loaded and ready to tow.

If I get a few minutes, I'll take a picture of the car with the towball in place and stowed. It's really neat - almost invisble as I wanted, and the ball even fits inside the spare wheel when not in use so you can carry it round with you and it doesn't even take up any boot space.