General RAC tow & wreck bumper!

[Theflyingpostman]

Yesterday my car broken down due the clutch slave failure it would not move when depress the clutch pedal.

RAC arrived 3 hours later said sorry it can not be fix on side of road. So he towed my car to home 9 miles and he attach a spring pole into hole like a hook screw to the front bumper of my Punto.

After 4 miles up the hill my tow hook rip off my chassis! it wreck the bumper as well.:bang:

The RAC has apologize to me, he will fill me a claim for the damage once is finish send them the bill of cost, he said that the tow hook should not have happen like this. Had to wait another 2 hours for lorry to load my car on ramp.

I did not have a wonderful day yesterday, I was curious if the tow hook are design to tow the car??? or is temporary tow on lorry ramp? my look a bit rusty near the tow hook.



Now I am look to have a replace the front bumper, also I do not know if is worth to welding the hook attach hole? would this make more weak than the before?

Next time if RAC is tow me where would it be more safe position?


Fab.

 

[AndyRKett]

The towing eye that screws In should be perfectly safe for towing the car and I have towed a mk2 many miles on this alone when I needed to get it to a garage.

The problem is likely one of age and corrosion the bar that the tow eye screws into sits just behind the bumper and is bombarded with road salt and debris for the life of the car and seeing as the youngest mk2bs are ~ 15 years old this is likely to have resulted in a lot of corrosion in the threads of the towing eye. If the towing eye was ripped out and it was installed correctly then almost certainly the threads of for the towing eye are no more. Really it needs the panel into which the towing eye screws, replacing as well. You could weld the towing eye in place but I’m not sure it would pass an MOT as the eye could cause some serious damage to a pedestrian in an accident
There may also be some problems with welding a thick piece of cast steel into the thin sheet steel of the slam panel

 

[portland_bill]

Did he use the tow eye from your toolkit, or use one of his own?

Surprisingly, the thread is not standardised and incorrect ones may screw in a little way, but not properly.