Hey everyone! I am the owner of a 2022 LR Defender. It came with no tow bar, so I installed one that I purchased online. I installed it correctly, but where I am confused is that there are supposed to be 2 cables in the back that gets connected to the towbar to give it power for the 2 types of connection. The cable that's in my Defender does NOT have those 2 cables dangling off to connect to the tow bar. I would like to know what some of you have done to get power to the towbar.
This is the website of where it shows how to connective the 2 cables to those 2 wires on the towbar: LAND ROVER ACCESSORY FITTING INSTRUCTIONS
To be clear, I would like to connect the wiring harness if that helps.

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

 

If it didn't come from the factory, you will need the trailer wiring module (black box) and harness kit to connect everything up. You also will need to have the vehicle 'flashed' by a dealer or the activation guys for the truck to recognize the module. YouTube it. Lots of good advice out there.

 

Thanks for the feedback. I dd take a look at the this Land Rover website which is very detailed and explains the install process very well: LAND ROVER ACCESSORY FITTING INSTRUCTIONS. I do want to point out one important thing. For those who want to install a towbar, they will need the module which costs around $350-$400 or so, and then the harness which is another $200 for a total of up to 600. What you get with that is the ability to connect and have turn/stop/tow lights on what ever your towing. For the price of about $15, you can go to amazon (https://a.co/d/2KUv1Pb) and buy a generic cable that you will have to splice to your tail lights but does the same exact thing as the Land Rover module. Am I wrong to think of it this way? Its a lot of money just to have lights for a very basic problem.
Would love to hear what others think.

 

I am not positive what all this specific LandRover part does I suspect it is similar the module I had programmed into an Audi Q5 a few years back. At the time I was also unhappy about the cost and the dealer required programming. I complained about it to the service manager and he went through the list of changes that adding a trailer connection causes including changes to shift points, cooling profile, stability control systems, and of course the basic stuff like detection of trailer light function (I bigger deal for non-LED trailers).

In short I bet this module also has a set of related tweaks to vehicle programming when a trailer is connected and that’s why it is a similar cost to the Audi one.

I would definitely not recommend splicing into an existing wiring harness to connect a trailer. Presuming that the light assemblies are not just can bus modules and there are actual signal wires to tap you won’t know that those lines have enough capacity to drive a trailer without burning something up or blowing fuses.

 

Hmm, good point! Thanks very much for the assistance!

 

[QUOTE=pinion;904328I would definitely not recommend splicing into an existing wiring harness to connect a trailer. Presuming that the light assemblies are not just can bus modules and there are actual signal wires to tap you won’t know that those lines have enough capacity to drive a trailer without burning something up or blowing fuses.[/QUOTE]

Above all this ^^^. You're thinking old-style analog auto electrics, not auto digital auto electronics. There are aftermarket modules and wiring harnesses for less than OEM some of which don't even require activation in the vehicle systems, but I would not go that route to save a few hundred $ (you're driving a $100k vehicle for chrissakes!) unless OEM functionality is guaranteed. And this can only be done with a vehicle activation.
You can do the activation yourself with an IIDTool and the money you save on the dealer will go a long way towards the purchase price.