A tug named Quark?

A small measure of angst this week all surrounding tow mirrors.

The back-story

We are in Yarrawonga in northern Victoria – near the NSW border at Lake Mulwala. Here we have been minding a friends house and two boys (10 & 13) while she went to The Maldives for a couple of days on a trip she earned through the business she and Megan are involved with. She had no one else she trusted with the boys and was thinking of not going, so how could we not offer… it was The Maldives!

Anyway, in addition to this, we had previously arranged with her that we would help move her caravan – currently sitting idle at her parents place in Swan Hill. This meant a little running around before we left Adelaide, making sure we had a fully functional tow bar and brake controller. The tug came with a bar – which turned out to be in good condition and correctly fitted – but no neck or ball. It also came with a brake controller, but we needed to know it was working correctly. A trip to a tow bar specialist found all was well, and we were also able to source the electrical adaptor we needed for the 12-pin flat connector fitted to our car to the 7-pin round connector used on our friends caravan. It will also prove useful if we need to borrow a small trailer at any point.

But none of that was the cause of the angst.

We also needed tow mirrors

I did some research online and visited the Club Touareg forums and the consensus was that the Milenco Aero 3 was the pick of the litter (for removable tow mirrors). These come in two styles, the original Aero 3 and the larger Grand Aero 3. I chose the larger ones as this towing newbie wanted as much vision as possible.

Next step was finding a supplier. This proved difficult as it seemed few places in Adelaide stocked them. I, of course, simply went online to find a supplier and found several available on Ebay. However, I could not get any delivered before we set out for Yarrawonga. No problem, right, just have them delivered to our friends house. This is what I did. We drove to Yarrawonga on Thursday and placed the order for the mirrors on Friday. For a reasonable price I could have them delivered by Thursday. Note, we are planning to move the caravan on the Saturday immediately following, so the timeline was a little tight. This is where the angst comes in…

After placing the order, Australia Post originally mimicked the Thursday delivery. However… on the Monday after placing the order we received the tracking code and found our earliest likely delivery date was the Monday after we were planning on moving the caravan!

OK, so a contingency plan was needed. I was not about to have my first caravan towing experience be illegal. The simplest was that we would visit the local Supercheap Auto on Friday afternoon if we didn’t receive the order and purchase whatever they had. These would become a backup set of mirrors. Crisis averted.

However, long story short… well not so short… the ordered mirrors arrived on Friday (today). Yay!

Fitting the mirrors

So test fit required. Here is the tug with them fitted. The best part is that the cars mirrors can still be folded in when the tow mirrors are attached, so no fiddling with the cars settings is required. The clamps are a bit of a tight squeeze between the mirror glass and surround, but they fit. Just.

Oh, right… so why Quark?

For those not familiar with Star Trek, Quark is the proprietor of a bar/restaurant/casino on the Deep Space Nine space station. He is a Ferengi, and is the character featured in the opening image of this post. The defining physical feature of a Ferengi is their very large ears. I just felt the car looked a bit Dumbo-esque – and therefore Ferengi-esque – with the mirrors attached, hence Quark.