Blue Ox BX7445 Aventa LX 10,000lb Tow Bar

Just got home from my first camping trip using this to tow my Jeep Wrangler Unlimited behind my motor home. Worked so much better than my last set up. For example, I stopped for fuel in Dannsville NY Truck stops of America and followed the signs for RV's only to find by RV they must mean pop up campers and mini vans, not 38 foot motor homes pulling a 4 door Jeep. Really tight, lots of cars and no way to turn around so I had to unhook the Jeep, back the motor home out of the fuel island, did a K turn on the street then hooked the Jeep back up within 10 minutes. My old tow bar would take 15 minutes just to unhook.

This is a very heavy duty tow bar-significantly heavier than the previous Aladdin tow bar that I had. However, after having used it on several trips, I can say that this does live up to its advertising of being very easy to disconnect in most situations. Again, this is a big improvement in that area over my former Aladdin tow bar. The only negativeI have noticed is that the ball is somewhat stiff. The tower will even stay parallel with the ground when I am not holding it and it is not connected to anything. This at times makes it just a hair difficult to attach to the car, but this is by no means a showstopper. Overall, I would say Blue Ox did a great job with this tower and I plan to use it for many miles to come. D

Other than one locking handle that fell out (it took me a minute to figure out how to put it back in and allen key it back in tight) and the retaining pin's being to short, (I went to my local tractor supply store and found pins long enough) this product works very well.

Two star rating for the following reasons:1) No where on the item does it say you will need a base plate. A potential buyer does not know a separate base plate is needed until they try to install it. the base plate must be special ordered directly from Blue Ox and it costs another $400. I never installed a tow system before. So I had no idea what is needed. Blue Ox was totally useless to buyers in this respect.2) No where on the item does it say buyer also needs to buy an electrical hook-up set. This is also something I found out after I bought it. It was another $2003) The electric connector that operates the lights has a faulty design. Mine has fallen off twice - that's another $65x2 = $130. I finally had to bungee cord the electric connector to both my RV and my tow vehicle.4) After all the costs are included - Tow bar, base plate, electric connections, brake system - this tow system is by far the most expensive on the market and its really not that good. There are other systems out there that are much cheaper and preform as good or better than the Blue Ox system. I found this out after talking to some fellow RV'ers about my problems with the Blue Ox and how happy they are with the other tow systems.

Item collapsed like a pretzel crawling out of a service station. Did substantial damage to my RV and the truck I was towing. This never should have happened going this slow, and I am eternally grateful it did not happen at highway speeds. Filing claims with my insurance companies hoping they will sue blue ox for the damages. The picture was taken after I backed the truck away from the motorhome by about 2 to 3 feet. I could not get in between the two to get them apart. The service station was immediately on the entrance ramp to the freeway and I was partially blocking entry on to the freeway.

I figured why not go ahead and get the 10,000 lb model? You never know in the future what you might be towing. I'm of the mindset that if you buy the right one the first time you don't have to buy it again. We got our's to pull a <5000 lb Jeep Liberty so this is certainly overkill.One word of caution that I might pass along here, get yourself a good pair of mechanics gloves when you're hooking or unhooking your toad. There is a lot of nasty pinch points involved here and a pair of gloves are invaluable.This may seem costly, I found the best price here at Amazon, this really is a high quality item.

Needed a replacement for the Blue Ox tow bar I had literally worn out over 13 years of use. This replacement impressed me most with the tightness of all the joints and the inclusion of the coiled safety cables - a big improvement over the previous straight cables that had to wrap around the tow bar arms to prevent them from dragging on the pavement, and which required external protective wrapping at the toad-end to protect the car's grill finish. The new cables simply stretch out and maintain sufficient tension to preclude any requirement for additional routing, and no opportunity to come in contact with the toad's grill. The toad in my case is a 2005 Honda Pilot.

Though I've used it only once, it worked great - better than advertized. I did have it professionally installed but had no trouble doing my own hook-up and un-hook. It was a pleasure watching my pick-up track solid and sure behind my motorhome even in town. Only one minor heart-stopper: when it arrived the carton had popped open as the staples had ripped through the cardboard container. Worried that some parts may be missing, my installer told me what to look for and thankfully all was still there. Blue Ox shipping ought to look into a heavier cardboard for this item.