I have now fitted my
Westfalia tow bar with removable hitch which I bought from
PF Jones.
To fit the tow bar requires removal of the rear bumper which, as previously mentioned by 'ade', is made difficult by the need to remove the rear painted wheel arches which are secured by clips and double sided adhesive.
I don't intend to give a full account of the procedure but am just explaining the difficult parts of the procedure and posting some picture as a picture is often worth a thousand words.
The Audi workshop manual (ElsaWin) describes how to do this and the procedure involves using a hot air gun to heat the wheel arch to soften the adhesive of the double side sticky and plastic wedges. I found that some plastic wedges I'd used when fitting laminate flooring did the job.
Once the wheel arches have been released it is necessary to remove a few pieces of trim and some nuts before releasing the bumper. The top edge of the bumper, between the light cluster and wheel arch has to be pulled away from the car to release some plastic tabs. I found this to need quite a lot of force yet care is required as these tabs could break meaning you may end up having to get the bumper repaired or replaced - maybe there is a special method to removed these clips but that was not evident in the ElsaWin manual.
Replacing these parts was quite straightforward and I used number plate adhesive to replace the double sided adhesive which was damaged during removal.
Heating the wheel arch and starting to prise it off...
The arch has been prised off from the three retaining tabs...
That tongue in the middle of the tab had to be levered up with a small screwdriver to release it...
The top of the bumper has some slotted tabs which lock into latches in that black plastic moulding...
Remnants of the double sided sticky, what you can't see are the slotted tabs on the top of the bumper (that photo was out of focus and not useable, sorry)...
This big black piece of metal is discarded and replaced with the tow bar...
The ball and electric socket ready for use...
The tow ball has been detached and the socket folded away...
No bumper cutting was required, the cutout was there from new, possibly because my car had the Audi 'tow bar preparation'.
The total cost was about £415 whereas I'd been quoted about £650 by Audi.
I hope that all helps anyone wanting to fit their own tow bar.
Edited by: Gromit