Hi, bought my Croma three weeks ago, and so far i love it. It’s a great car to drive. Paid the same £5999 for a 2006 Eleganze, done 22,000 miles.
I need to fit roof bars and a towbar, so any sensible ideas about where to buy from would be much appreciated.

Tow bar I can help you with:

I got mine from http://www.hedley-towbars.co.uk/

Brink 4361

Fitted myself and had no problems.

As with all tow bar fitting the electrics can be a little challenging.

Fiat do a wiring kit:

Westfalia 306 263 300 133
Fiat 50 901 429

However this kit only covers trailer lighting so if you are towing a caravan or other trailer with onboard electrical items and charging systems the you will require additional electrics.

I went the independent route and used/fitted:
PCT ZR1328A - Towing Interface Relay
PCT ZR1220 - The Volton Combi Relay

Both Units are available in kit:
PCT ZK3020A - 12N/12S Towing Interface Relay Kit

Additional point of warning.

Your need to run some fairly heavy wiring directly from the battery to the rear of the car. This easily and best done buy routing externally following the brake and fuel lines through the plastic trunking under the car and end entering the boot from underneath at the rear of the car.

Personally I ran two power feeds, both fused at battery end. One for the lighting circuits and one for the auxilary power (caravan battery charging & fridge etc.)

When wiring into the lighting circuit I used quick connect insulation displacement connectors (also know as ScotchLock) but a note of warning. You MUST use a control unit as detailed above (or similar) AND PLEASE DO chase the wire back from the rear light units AT LEAST 12inches/30cm from the light unit themselves. To do this you will have to undo the cable loom rapping/tape but the idea is to ONLY connect into the loom where you can easily patch and repair poor/broken connections easily. I've seen so called professional fitters tapping into the looms right nect to the connectors that go to the light units.

LOOM ENDS/CONNECTORS and wiring must be protected at all costs. Always work well away from the ends and certainly far enough away to allow several repairs to be implemented before running out of useable wire at loom/connector ends.

s130 said:

Fitted myself and had no problems. .

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Would add though, you do need to remove the rear light units and rear bumper. You will also need to drop the rear of the exhaust down as well.

All this can be done on your drive. You will need some ramps/blocks to raise the front of the car to easily allow you to run the wires under the car.

Remember to disconnect the battery as well, and leave to stand for 10 minutes before disconnecting. If you don't do this then when you next power up the car you will get loads of light failure warnings and you will have to operate the lights for at least five seconds each before the system re-registers the lights and clears the warnings down.

this might be of some use

https://www.fiatforum.com/grande-pu...ng-towbar-12-n-socket-7-way-bypass-relay.html

s130 fantastic, just the kind of help I was after. Can you remember did you need to cut the bumber to fit this towbar. Thanks again.

londonlocal said:

s130 fantastic, just the kind of help I was after. Can you remember did you need to cut the bumber to fit this towbar. Thanks again.

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Yes you have to cut the bumper, but the cut is not visible from behind unless you put you head on the ground and look up.

Also, the Brink model I mentioned incorporates a drop/swivel down electrical 13 pin socket connector plate.

As 13pin is now the new standard for new caravans in the UK I would stick to 13pin single socket installations and avoid the twin 7 pin socket layout. If you need the dual seven pin setup then fit 13pin and add a 13pin to dual 7 pin 'Y' cable.

The Brink 4361 towbar is a removable head one. With this and the swivel socket when not in use nobody will ever know you have a towbar fitted.

Personally I always leave the ball/neck attached and just put the socket up when not towing. With a neck on display it forms a deterrant to stupid parkers and some tailgaiters. Adds that little extra protection or damge reduction should somebody decide to assualt the rear of your car.

Last point. With this tow bar then even when it is attached and the socket is in the up or down position then the reversing sensors DO NOT (well for) activate. Attached a load or bike rack and the sensors will go off.

If you live within striking distance of Southampton then you are welcome come look in detail.

Nick, thanks again for the advise and the kind offer.

Doofer said:

Interesting. Do you know whether this is likely to increase or decrease fuel consumption at all?

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Just for info, I fitted the diamond shaped reduction plate (with 3 bullet holes) when I fitted my new EGR valve to my 1.9 8v Dynamic, it runs great now and the MPG does not seem to be affected, I am still averaging high 40s mpg with mixed town/motorway driving, incidentally, the ability to get 56mpg+ on long motorway runs still amazes me in a car this size.

Hi, not sure anyone can help, I have just fitted a towbar to my Croma, I disconnected the battery before removing the Bumber, that has the number plate lights and reversing sensers in, however after completing the fitting, that took me 6 hours, but thats what happens when you dont have all the correct tools, I turned the key on and I know get a warning for the 'electric windows system failure' I beleive its related to the 'pinch' and ideas why this might happen or how to fix the issue. Thanks

Its OK, just read another thread on solving this issue.

The other thing you may have encountered was "bulb warning failure" messages despite having put all the lights back. To clear these warnings down you have to operate each of the lights for some 5 to 20 seconds. Indicators are the worst to reset. Just be patient and the 'lights will come to you'

Fitting the Croma tow bar is not that bad. Dropping the exhaust back end (releasing the rubber supports) is a real fiddle. WD40 helps no end.

You say it took you 6 hours. Great. This means you took it slowly and steadily and didn't bully your way through the fitting. I've fitted two tow bars myself and have paid two different companies to fit two others over the years. Needless to say the two I fitted with all the ectrics as well took me a long time but were fault free. The two so called professional fitments had electrics problems and more importanly some of those difficult to remove and even more fiddly and time consuming to refit bumper bolts/nuts, washers and rubber paintwork protection washers were not fitted correctly or totally discarded on the reassembly.

Makes me VERY VERY angry. If I/you can do the job properly with due care and attentions to detail then why the **** can't the so called professionals. This applies to garages, tow bar fitters and bodyshops.

Don't get me started on bodyshop trim fitment bodges and omissions that go on every day. My Tipo was repaired a few years ago by one of the South Coast's largest BMW bodyshops as dicated by the insurance company. I 'B' had the audacity to suggest the inside rear door paintwork damage where their monkey had levered the inside door panel/trim off was cause by rear passengers kicking the paintwork as they got in/out. I'd never had any passenger in the rear of the car and when I correctly popped part of the panel in his presence to show him how these 'kick' marks actually went under the panel he then accused me of doing the damage myself to stitch him up.

The more of use people who double check the work that we pay for then hopefully we can improved the industry........ pigs can't fly.....sadly

Nick, thanks for the info on lights, however I hav'nt fitted the electrics yet will plan to do that this weekend. Have read your previous post which I have found helpful. I much prefer to carry out the work myself, then if it goes wrong its my ass I have to kick, but I'm not getting any younger, maybe thats why it took me 6 hours. to fit the towbar.

U2ME said:

Nick, thanks for the info on lights, however I hav'nt fitted the electrics yet will plan to do that this weekend. Have read your previous post which I have found helpful. I much prefer to carry out the work myself, then if it goes wrong its my ass I have to kick, but I'm not getting any younger, maybe thats why it took me 6 hours. to fit the towbar.

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Don't forget to disconnect the battery.

Also ensure you connect into the wiring loom well away from the light units. I made the connections above the rear struts, i.e. some 18 inches+ from the light clustres.

Can't remember what I wrote in my original post(s) re tow bar fitting. but as long as it covered using suitable light relay unit etc. then you shouldn't have too many problems.

Also ensure you leave some slack/extra 7way/dual 7way/13 way cable for two reasons.

1) allows one the rewire/repair the rear socket/sockets wiring should you ever need to.

2) if you have a single 13 way swivel/drop down socket then you need a nice loop in the cable to allow for the 90 degree rotation / twist that is required in the cable when the socket is lowered & raised. You do not want the cable to twist in the back of the socket because before long the whole lot will fail.

Hello, was wondering if anyone had an idea how to fix an issue I'm now getting. After driving the car I switch off engine and mover the key, however I cannot open the Drivers door, all other doors will open. I have to lower window to open door from outside. Not sure if this was caused when i disconnected the battery to fit the towbar. Any ideas would be very appreciated. Thanks

Does the inside door handle have any feel / restance to it? Compare with passenger.

The link from the inner door lever to the door lock is via a bowden cable.

With luck all that has happened is that the cable has become detach from the inner door lever or the lever is broken.

If the cable has become detach/broken at the lock end then you are in for a rather big door strip down which you should not attempt without reference to the Croma workshop manual.

I recently had to dismantle my drivers door down to repair a floppy outside door handle that would not return home without a push. I suggest you allow yourself three to four hours. If you need parts then be prepared to garaged or cover the car as you will not want to reassemble the door till the problem is fixed.

Nick, thanks. did have a compair between the passenger side and drivers side. What I noticed when you operate the passengers handle on the outside the lock latch seems to move slightly as I guess it would if there is a cable or bar going to it, however the drivers side there is no movement. Only bought the car (second hand) less then 3 months ago so Im hoping its covered on the warrenty ( but my eyes arn't that good to read the small print) Thanks again.

Kev.

Kev, If you search for "Croma door handle" you will find the instructions, a bit more than elearn, which did help me, but I described the force needed and direction of pull. This will help if you need to take off the door panel or card. You will find the door interior extremely well made.

keithglos said:

You will find the door interior extremely well made.

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Yes very well made. To get to the outside door handle assembly you have to remove the whole of the inner frame/carrier which requires removal of the glass and disconnetion of the door jam connector and feeding the connector and cable through the door as well.

Hi, just to let you know. Took the car back to the garage, as its under a 3 months warrenty. They fixed the door handle, they said "the clip had broken"? this would have cost me £75.00.