We Could Have Crashed! BLUE OX TOW BAR FAILURE | RVI BRAKE SAVES US!
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- čas přidán 3. 08. 2022
- August 3rd was by far the worst travel day we have ever had and we are lucky to be all ok. We had a catastophic failure of our tow bar while towing our Jeep on Highway 2 in Michigan. I still can't believe how lucky we are and how there is minimal damage to the Jeep and RV.
We are currently corresponding with Blue Ox and our Insurance company to figure out what will happen next. I will keep updating as things unfold.
Big thank you to @RVi for making an awesome product that worked as advertised. The RVIBrake3 engaged and our disconnected jeep did not become a run away.
Very thankful for today.
#blueoxtowbar #rvdisaster #blueoxtowbarfailure
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I hate that your RV and Jeep took damage, but I'm so glad you guys are ok and no one was hurt.
Thanks so much for an awesome product that literally saved us. So happy to be part of the RVi Brake family!
Really happy for your and your family that no one was injured! I'm in the process of setting my RV up for flat towing. I did notice you have a lot of slop in your hitch system which is putting a whole lot more stress on your system than it can handle. This slop will cause metal fatigue on your hitch components. You should consider putting a couple of Anti-Rattle Hitch Coupling clamps, one on each joint. Best wishes.
I'm so sorry that happened to you guys, how scary. Very glad to hear to you guys are OKAY. Hope the insurance takes care of everything..
Thank you. Outcome could have been way worse. Hopefully things will sort its way out.
I'm glad your damage was minimal. That could've been a lot worse. As an outsider who tows cars and trucks around on a variety of trailers my guess is that cargo carrier hitch extends way back past the end of your RV receiver and this would cause a lot of excess slop in your set up which in turn would slowly over stress your bar and your rv receiver eventually leading to something failing. I'd inspect your RV hitch then relocate the cargo carrier to the back of your jeep. Hook the bar right into your RV receiver.
I know Exactly who was looking out for yinz! TY Lord for this family's safety!
I just bought the Alpha Blue Ox & looking into equipping the car i want to tow. Ty for the video
Thank you and thanks for watching!
Glad your family is ok , hopefully blue ox will due the correct thing. The damage to the rv may take some time , hopefully you can get your awning also we lost ours before .
Thanks. We are talking with them and our Insurance. Jusy happy we're all ok.
It can happen on the steal bars too. Our friend towed a kia soul behind her class a and as soon as she pulled out of a parking lot, her's broke in the same location as yours. Her's is steal by the way. I check my blue ox aventa II every time i pull with it. We are also full timers.
I check ours each day we tow also. I won't be doing my own maintenance on it and will have it looked at by blue ox instead on the yearly look over.
Thank God your brake worked as it was supposed to.
Yeah man. Super fortunate. See you guys in a few weeks!
How old was the hitch?
Wow, crazy that you had such a complete failure of the towbar! I used a Blue Ox towbar to tow a Honda CRV and then a Jeep Wrangler behind my RV for 6 years with no issues. Really makes you think about what could have been had you been on the interstate at 60+ MPH.
Yeah. I posted in a winnebago group and 2 others had the same failure. Ours is an aluminum Tow bar. Seems they age and fatigue till failure. Not good.
@@WanderToGetLost I don't know for sure but I don't think mine was aluminum
@@WanderToGetLost Thank you for sharing. I will definitely avoid the aluminum one.
Did you try to activate the RVI brake manually with the Command Center? Or was it all happening too fast?
I never thought about the length of the breakaway line vs the safety cables. With a drop adapter on the receiver, my breakaway cable is stretched pretty tight, and I've considered adding an extension, but now I think that would be a bad idea. You definitely want the breakaway cable to pull out before the safety cables are fully extended.
My guess is that when the first safety cable broke, that allowed the tow bar (still attached to the front of the Jeep) to fall to the road, which broke the tow bar arms. If that's what happened, I'd take a good look at the baseplate and its attachment points to the Jeep, and probably replace it.
Did Blue Ox want the towbar for Failure Mode Analysis?
Good to hear everyone is OK.
Happened too fast. When I was processing everything and slowing the rv down, I should have been keeping speed up to allow the distance to increase to pull out the breakaway. I slowed down and that's when the jeep came up and tagged our rv. Once that happened the gap increased and the breakaway pulled out. Our connection points are d rings on our front bumper tied into the frame. Old tow bar was shipped back to blue ox for inspection. I plan to do a safety cable extension test and then plan to measure the distance to make my own breakaway cable that will stretch to a certain distance before the cables extend too far. It could have been way worse and we are thankful for that.
Also the cables that come with the hitches are not Rated to hook up to your jeep you should have Used chain lock cable
Glad you’re all fine. Could this have been caused by Jeep death wobble? We want to flat tow our JK but worried about something like this if death wobble starts without us detecting it until too late.
No. It was total tow bar failure. Our Jeep never had death wobble and always tracked perfectly behind our rv.
There's a reason they discontinued the aluminum tow bars. Aluminum just becomes brittle after too much flexing.
We were very lucky and always thankful that it wasn't worse.
Hi, just ran across your video today. Scary! Your towbar looks to be similar to mine. I see it has been about 3 months since this happened. Any updates on why the towbar failed? Maybe it is time I get rid of mine. Thanks!
Blue Ox no longer makes this type of aluminum tow bar. Their new one is a completely new design which I believe is because this one has this known failure. I've heard from quite a few people who have had this same failure but blue ox keeps saying its age related and lack of maintenence. We now have the all steel one. I would never use an aluminum one again.
@@WanderToGetLost Thanks for the reply. Would you happen to have the model number of the towbar that failed? Thanks again.
Inspection of the damaged tow bar will show if the the tow bar had prior damage before the failure, for example a cracked weld or stress point. By discontinue this tow bar blue ox is on the hook to recall them, however a lawsuit is expensive an could take years. If you have this model contact blue ox an inquire about a replacement in steel ,its possible they might cut you a big discount.Would be less costly than law suit.
Glad you you ok, it could have been a lot worst. Not trying to be critical, but the tow bar "appears" by the looks of the cylinder arms, it had not been serviced in some time, when was the tow bar inspected, service, arm cleaned and lube, bushing replace and pivot bolts and nylon bushings replaced? Blue Ox requires inspection and service . Blue Ox Tow bars requires periodic maintenance. It will be subjected to road dirt and weather during use. Recommend a full tow bar service every two (2) years or 10,000 miles. Also was the tow bar in alignment spec from the motorhome to the Jeep? I recommend that the emergency break-away tether be 6" shorted them the safety cables when they are fully stretched out.
The tow bar was serviced and our alignment is within spec. I've made adjustments with a hitch riser for that reason. The tow bar sheared off at the pivot point and in a few rv groups this model tow bar has had this happen before at the same area. People have been posting pictures. I am working on doing a safety cable distance measurement to make our breakaway cable pull out at a known distance. Thanks!
This was unfortunate and I'm glad you're all ok, but if you look back at previous connections in other videos you've posted, this was an accident waiting to happen. The tow bar was not set up properly and you even pointed out that "one of the locking mechanisms was broken". There was too much of an angle on your connection point from your jeep to the hitch, which probably caused undue stress on the components.
Blue Ox instructions state no more than 12" and two connections from the towed vehicle hitch and warns of severe damage. It appears the installation on the MH is way out of with at least 2 ft or more from the the RV and its on some type of hitch mounted cargo carrier. Be interesting how this turns out.
We are not the only rv'ers to experience this failure on this particular tow bar. It might be why blue ox no longer makes the tow bar and totally changed the design of their tow bar connection pivot point.
Was this tow bar made of aluminum.
What model and whats the weight capacity.
Glad you’re ok. Cheers.
It was the atlas aluminum tow bar. Rated for 7500lbs. Blue Ox no longer makes the model. Blue ox tried to tell me I was over the weight limit, but I had my Jeep weighed and we were over 2,000 lbs below the weight limit as I knew it would be.
Thank you.😀
Blue OX will lie about anything to do with liability. They have issues with base plates too on some Grand Cherokees
I can side with you. We JUST purchased a brand new 2023 Dynamax DX3. Wife wanted to drive it first. Pulling into a fuel stop she ran over a fuel pump safety barrier loop and took out three passenger side compartments. 40 miles on the clock. My guess,,, $12,000 in damage to the RV. How did the awning die? I was just considering a Blue OX tow bar system. WOW! You may have saved me another nightmare!
There's a reason why blue ox has discontinued their aluminum tow bars. I've heard from a lot of people about similar failures.
We have been very happy with the all steel tow bar. Haven't had any issues even while towing in the mountains on the west coast. Thanks for watching!
What pound 5000 thousand or 7500 blue ox
It was the 7500 lbs model.
One thing is that you guys used for the wrong extension on your motor home. Looks like it's sticking out 3 or 4 feet. And when you do that, you're supposed to use bigger than a 2 inch. Hitch should be a 2 and a 1/2. Or you should have bought the hitch that has a 22 edge on it. And it extends out further. My opinion is you bought the wrong hitch on the rear of your motor home. And that's probably what failed
Death wobble from jeep. Caused failure
That's an interesting theory. I'm still trying to figure how he did not feel or hear this breaking up.
Prior damage for sure…and why don’t you have video from your rear camera? Humm……
Older systems did not have the ability to record unless they were set up with an 8mm or vhs recorder.