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Wiring for towbar

gazzarose

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Location
South Wales
Car
Gen8 Accord Tourer
Evening all,

I've just picked up a used fixed towbar that came with a 13 pin socket but nothing more. Has anyone got a guide or knows of one to point me in the right direction. I spend my life doing wiring on boats but don't do much with cars since my days of giant subs when I was a teenager. If I can get all the functions of the 13 pin socket working it would be great, but I've no plans to get a caravan and will just be towing a small motorcycle trailer and probably a towbar mounted bike rack so don't really need the charging and fridge bits.

Does the accord need a bypass relay? I've seen the dedicated wiring kits but they're about £130 so probably a bit much for my needs.

Cheers

Gareth
 
A universal wiring kit with a by-pass relay will be quite sufficient (and much cheaper) for your needs. There are few advantages to fitting dedicated electrics to an Accord as there is no 'plug and play' facility, so splicing the wiring is still required, and the car does not require re-programming to adjust its stability control system when a trailer is attached. If you have reversing sensors these would not cut automatically however, and you would have to tolerate the continuous beep when reversing with a trailer.

My car has been fully wired for all caravan functions with a universal kit and 13 pin plug for five years without any problems.
 
Brilliant thanks for the replies. I'll probably try and get as many functions working as I can.

I don't suppose you know if all the connections are made in roughly one place or do the left indicator have to be routed to the back left light cluster and the right to the right. Is there a wiring diagram for the accord any where?
 
I've just had a look at the wiring on my car and all the tow bar wiring is routed behind the right rear light cluster and appears to feed into one large connector.
 
You sir are a gentleman. I'll go and have a look in a bit and see if I can make sense of it. The towbar I bought came with a bit of wiring, but it seems than instead of a bypass relay, they seemed to have used a little separate module that just does the beeping but no wires coming back out. I'll get a bypass ordered and give the towbar a bit of a cleanup and repaint and see if I can use my mates lift in his garage to make the job a bit easier.
 
I had a quick look yesterday afternoon and got the right rear light out and found a spare grommit so that might be a good route into the car, but I've no idea how to get the sub cover off. I'll get a bypass ordered and I'll go to a mates work who fits out police cars is going to help me with the stipping out and I can do the panels. I hate trying to get clipped in panels out, I also seem to snap at least one!
 
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