Tow Bars and Loyalty (Warning! A Long and Mostly Technical Post)

I've been contemplating this post for awhile and finally decided to write it.  I have begun to see a deterioration in customer service at a few of my favorite companies, and I don't think it only relates to things RV.  I'm sure in your own daily life you have seen established and respected companies either become too big, too confident, too complacent, or set in their ways, and have their customer service, and possibly their quality suffer.  If you are anything like me, I tend to ignore little signs and stick with them until finally something happens which is big enough or rises to the level where I just can't ignore it anymore.

Let's talk tow bars.  There are basically 2 big names in four down towing, Blue Ox and Roadmaster, think Ford and Chevy.  Yes there are many other respected manufacturers, but these are the big names and both made in America.  We began this adventure into motor homing over 25 years ago, and my in-laws who were very active in RVing influenced our decision positively, to get into a motorhome after we sold our sailboat.  They even lent us their motorhome and towed so we could get an idea of whether we liked it or not.  Vern, my father-in-law was a Roadmaster guy.  He had one of their baseplates on that vehicle we borrowed and used an early tow bar that stayed connected on the toad instead of the motorhome.  Almost all now stay on the motorhome.  Of course we loved our experience and decided to get a motorhome of our own, a Bounder in 1995.  I researched tow bars and baseplates and preferred Blue Ox at the time as their base plate was unobtrusive on the front of the toad, at that time a Honda Civic, which started our relationship with Blue Ox.  

On our very first trip with our Bounder while caravanning with my in-laws, Vern and Viv, we were transiting the Badlands in South Dakota when a car came up beside me, no easy feat on the winding road and shouted the motorhome behind me lost their car!  What?!?  We managed to pull over, thinking the whole time that if Vern lost his toad it was a goner as the Badlands are a particularly unfriendly place with steep drop offs and straight up cliffs, and hoping no one was hurt.  We ran back and sure enough at the rear of his motorhome was his tow bar securely fastened to half the base plate which had sheared off with his safety cables fastened to the piece that was still there.  We looked back and saw no vehicle.  Oh no, it must have dropped off a cliff. We walked back along the road until we found two tracks going off the road through a high field, but could not see his toad!  We walked down the tracks thinking we would see his vehicle at the bottom of a cliff, but instead we found it sitting perfectly fine in the bottom of a swale, yet the tracks ran up to the edge of a drop off, but amazingly stopped, and it rolled back to where it was sitting.  We all were stunned, and it was fine.  But no one had a good feeling about the Roadmaster tow bar and base plate after this.  They were so lucky it happened the way it did, because we had been on the interstate previously and then did the loop road through the Badlands and were going right back on the interstate.  It could have be so much worse.  So Viv drove their vehicle separately up to the visitor center to evaluate the situation.  Vern called Roadmaster who immediately said they would repair everything, provide a new baseplate, have it installed, a new tow bar, and set up a convenient place to do it, and had the service center open up with techs on a Saturday to take care of it all.  The way they handled it all wasn't lost on anyone, they stepped up and took care of everything, and had the tow bar and base plate sent back to them for evaluation.  This is the only catastrophic failure that I have personally been involved with, and when my in-laws decided to get a new motorhome and a new toad, I helped convince them to switch over to Blue Ox.

Since then, through 3 motorhomes to our present coach and 9 towed vehicles, including 6 Jeep Grand Cherokees, and 2 full size pickups to our present 2019 Ram 1500 4X4.  That is 9 baseplates installed by me and at least 3 others installed by me on other vehicles.  And 6 different Blue Ox tow bars over the years for various reasons, one example, we got an aluminum bar when we had a motorcycle lift on our coach, since the tow bar had to be removed so the bike lift could be lowered and the aluminum one was so much lighter.  No failures in all that time, and believe it or not, that includes 325,000 miles towing!

After this long epistle, you could say I was quite the loyal Blue Ox fan.  Two tow bars ago, after we had gotten rid of the motorcycle, I switched back to a steel tow bar, the Aventa, it was a new design at the time with a big ball that would allow you to more easily connect and disconnect when the terrain wasn't level.  It worked well, but the ball wore more than it should have, and Blue Ox agreed and sent me a replacement ball which turned out to wear in the same manner in the same amount of time.  I had the tow bar serviced and made like new, sold it, and bought their newest model the Avail, a 10,000 pound rated steel bar that seemed even more rugged, that was just 2 years ago.  After one year, I noticed what seemed to me quite a bit of play in the part that rotated, and questioned Blue Ox about it.

Our brand new Avail tow bar

I sent some pictures to Blue Ox, and they agreed there was more play than they wanted, and they sent me a new replacement part that I installed.

This where the play was found to be unacceptable

So only a month or so ago, one year after the new part, as I was hooking the truck up, I noticed there seemed to be the beginning of a little slop at the same point as before, nowhere near as bad, but since we were planning to sit in one place soon for a week, I figured it would be a good time to address it.  I called Blue Ox expecting they would send me a new part again like they had before, but this time I was told I needed to send it in and have it serviced.  I said I was planning on having it serviced per their requirements when I got back to Florida this winter.  They do recommend servicing their bar every 2 years, it costs a flat fee of $150 and they clean, lubricate, and replace washers, etc.  I said I needed them to send me a replacement part like they did before under warranty.  They repeated there weren't going to send me any part, it wasn't considered a warranty problem and I needed to have it serviced.  I asked why it was a warranty item last year and not this year, and I was told that is how it is, and send it in and get it serviced and if the part had to be replaced I'd have to pay for it since it wasn't considered warranty!  I reminded them of my loyalty and past history of many, many bars and baseplates.  The broken record continued, send it in.  I said I was not interrupting my trip to do that unless they felt it was unsafe.  I got a supervisor on the phone who repeated the mantra, then asked for more photos which I complied with.

As you can see this joint is still tight as compared to the previous one

The supervisor said the bar was perfectly safe, and I should send it in to be serviced at my earliest convenience and this winter would be fine.  Okay, this was the event that caused my loyalty and support for Blue OX to disappear.  How can a company that had such superb customer service and products evolve to where they are today.  I had 2 consecutive and different tow bars wear excessively which is the first alarm bell, these bars are about $1000 each,  both of these bars are rated for 10,000 pounds, our truck weighs 6000 pounds, way under the rated poundage, and then to have to hear a mantra about servicing, in fact the first person said I needed to service the bar once a year, when their literature is extremely clear and says 2 years, and if you could have heard the absolute disrespect I was receiving on the phone after being an exceptional customer for 25 years.  I'm done.  Right now they are dead to me.

So moving on, I am now a Roadmaster user.  I researched and bought a Blackhawk 2 All-Terrain 10,000 pound tow bar.  It can, with a set of adapters connect to my Blue Ox base plate.  It seems very rugged, releases very easily, and has the added ability to run the safety cables in channels along the arms making for a clean set up.  Now I have several friends that are staunch supporters of Roadmaster and my research shows a few more supporters of Roadmaster than Blue Ox right now, and it seems their customer service and tech people are superior.

The new bar folded on the rear of the motorhome

You can see the Blue Ox adapter on the end of the arm

Arm extended and safety cables in the channels

Now we have just made the switchover, so it will be some time before I can give a substantial report on the use, ease, and day to day operation of the new bar.  But we are very confident it is going to work out very well.  And already, with a couple of calls to tech support and then to customer service, Roadmaster is already light years ahead.

I was going to go on and mention a couple other RV companies that seem to be on a downhill slope, but I think I will wait that for a future post.  Thanks, if you've made it this far, for letting me vent my frustration and join me in our quest for future success.