Cautionary Note: Traumatic Tale of the Toad

March 21, 2014

Denver, NC

We've been so busy lately that I'm behind in some postings. I did want to mention one incident which may be of importance to other RVers. We were on our way from the Charlotte area to Denver, NC. I was driving the Vesta and towing the car. We were on a secondary road, 4 lanes with a center turn lane and lots of stop lights. Nothing at all unusual here. At some point the light changed quickly and I braked hard. The Vesta has great brakes and it stopped easily so I didn't run the yellow or red. We then started again and a few minutes later a car passing beeped it's horn. Peg looked out her window to see what was going on, suspecting a storage door had opened like it had once before. But she shouted "My God, the car!" It looked like it was trying to pass us.

I immediately pulled over into the turn lane, as that was the closest to us. We got out to inspect the damage. The car was still attached, but the tow bar which attaches to the body of the car was severely bent. It had bent enough to break one of the fog lights and skewed the car partially out into the right hand lane.

We frantically worked to detach the car from the rig, which was really surprisingly easy to do. There was no apparent damage to the car other than the broken fog light which was dangling by it's electric cord. I duct taped that back in place and we proceeded with Peg driving the car and me driving the Vesta.

I had to think about it for a few minutes before I figured out what happened. Lesson learned: the Vesta has great brakes and can stop itself and a towed car, but it can't slow the momentum of the car it is towing, and in the case of a hard stop the momentum of the car was enough to bend the tow bar. I had never thought about a braking system for the Honda because it is so light. I had already thought about a Brake Buddy for the Fit when we changed to the Leisure Travel because it is such a lighter vehicle. This convinced me.

We put the Brake Buddy on the Fit yesterday and towed it around the neighborhood to test it out. It works perfectly and it is a real relief knowing that I'm not stressing the brakes on the Mercedes. Peg sat in the passenger's seat of the Fit while I drove around stopping and starting. She said it was weird sitting in a car that drove itself and stopped itself.

So, if you tow, you might want to consider an auxiliary brake system even though your rig brakes have more than enough stopping power.

Sorry that there are no pictures. We were too freaked to even think about it.

I want to thank Kevin at Complete RV in Denver NC. I walked in with my bent tow bar and asked "fix or replace? I'd rather fix because replace is around $500." He said he could fix it, just heat it up with an acetylene torch and bend it back. But he didn't know if he had enough acetylene. He took it out back to check and came back a few minutes later with an unbent tow bar. He had acetylene, but not enough oxygen. So he offered me a trade straight across, his for mine. I said, disbelievingly, "Really?". He said "Yes". His wife said, "Are you giving him mine?" He said "Yes." I asked "How much?" He said "Nothing". I said, "No, not really. How much?" He kinda shrugged and said "Nothing", again. I pulled out my wallet and found $20 which I placed on the counter. I told him that he saved me money, time and convenience and that was well worth something to me and I appreciated it. He looked at the 20 and looked at me, sort of like no one had ever done this before, said Thank You and that it would buy him and his wife lunch.

So if you're in Denver NC, and need some RV service, look them up at RV Complete.