Faulty Tow Bar

This is the saga of a failed tow bar and what turned out to be what I consider to be an inadequate response by the manufacturer.
  
The manufacturer readily admitted fault in the matter, but due to lack of immediate availability of a replacement, promptly arranged for on the road repairs  and subsequently offered full replacement and compensation   

but I believe has yet to address the issue of a recall or public warning for rest of the batch.
Despite repeated requests for them to do so, I do not believe this has happened.
 

	By incredible good fortune the tow bar failed with a loud bang at 10 KPH, I do not like to think what would have happened at 100 KPH with almost 2 tonnes of caravan behind.  The safety chains would have been of no use, they attach to the part that was falling off ! The photos clearly show the vertical welds to the flat plate did not make contact during the manufacture. How many others from this manufacturing batch are in use waiting to fail in similar fashion ? Why did it lift at the ball end like this ? apparently due to the upward force exerted by the 250 Kg  load distribution bars. Seems to me like very poor quality control.
All of these photos were taken within 30 minutes of the event.      Update  2005 Four years has passed since this event and in that time I have spoken to every Jackaroo owner I have come across with this tow bar fitted (around 20-30) and not one had been contacted in relation to a possible manufacturing fault. I do not believe their claims to have investigated this matter simply because I do not believe they know when or where I purchased the product (they never even bothered to asked me) and therefore would not know the date of manufacture or their batch number.   Maybe they didn't ask because maybe they don't keep manufacturing records - if so, so much for quality control. Why would a large well known company bury their head in the sand and allow the possibility of potentially dozens of other similar faulty products like this to be in use with potentially fatal consequences ? (Imagine the potential consequences of two tonnes of caravan or horse float careering down the highway completely detached from the tow vehicle.)    Further more, the promised re-imbursement of my out-of-pocket expenses and supply of a new towbar was never made. I still have the repaired and heavily reinforced tow bar fitted and as such is vastly superior to the original tow bar and would have continued using it in preference to the promised replacement but it is their attitude and what I perceive to be an apparent lack of concern for public safety that is a worry.........now if I can get a modification to my load distribution set-up (from the same manufacturer), I would be very happy. Update  2007 I had an interesting and very informative talk with an employee of a large tow bar company that sells and installs a large quantity of this brand as well as their own custom made tow bars. I showed him these photos and he told me that they get literally dozens of similarly faulty tow bars from the same company which they simply re-weld themselves, if they notice it.    The problem I am told is an occasional problem with the automatic welding robot that slips through their "quality control". So much for the "I have never known this to happen before" line from a senior company employee that I spoke with, (the same one that promised re-imbursement of my out-of-pocket expenses and supply of a new tow bar). The moral of the story, inspect your tow bar yourself very carefully  before it is fitted.    I was told to check that all the welds ever-so-slightly undercut both surfaces being joined. My own tow bar had a perfectly neat weld bead but it was only stuck to one side as you can see in the photo (bottom row, left). I asked this person if he used this brand of tow bar on his own 4x4 and he replied that he did have one but it needed to be reinforced in so many areas that he replaced it with a custom built one using heavier gauge steel.  I know where my next tow bar won't be coming from............... See my pages covering that, Towing & Load Distribution Equipment.