Roadmaster Vs. Blue Ox?

SargeW, Helluva story!  You sound convinced some kinda "thump" you felt knocked the toad loose from the MH.  If there wasn't "collision" damage to the toad, then it must've been a faulty tow bar/plate system from BOx.  Like something threw a log or sumthin' between the MH and the toad or jammed the toad from behind.  Helluva "thump"!  Thanks for the posting... I wish we had more data on this and other such situations.  Amazing.

The braking system was the Ready Brake surge system. Probably the reason why the Jeep didn't wind up parked on top of the Cummins when the tow bar failed. On a hard stop the Jeep will 4 wheel lock. The real troubling part was that the eyelets on the BASEPLATE never should have failed, regardless of what else was going on.  That's what they are there for.  This is what I found when I got back to the Jeep..........

On the other hand, I've had excellent service from Roadmaster.  I purchased one of their Falcon All Terrain tow bars in 2006 and in 2008 it failed.  I had to fly to California to help with a family emergency so my wife and her uncle followed in the motorhome, pulling the toad.  Unfortunately, they neglected to undo the steering lock so the toad's front wheels stayed straight ahead the whole way.  On the last turn into the RV park, the towbar's inside arm bent and the extension lock failed.

I took the towbar to the RV show in Quartzsite later that month, where Roadmaster had a booth set up in the Big Tent.  Although the damage was clearly my fault, they offered to repair it for free in their installation facility out back.  When it came time to do the repair, inspection showed the damage was more extensive than they first thought and they wound up basically replacing everything except the outer casings on both arms.  Still free of charge, except for the tip I gave the tech who devoted close to 2 hours in the middle of a busy day to the job.

We've had similar experiences to Lou's, with Blue Ox.  When we completely demolished a Blue Ox Aladdin tow bar in an accident, they replaced it at no cost, no questions asked, even though it was not the fault of the tow bar.  We have never had anything but excellent service from Blue Ox, whether at a rally, Quartzsite, or the factory.

As I stated previously, either one would be a good choice.  Don't make a decision on one or two anecdotal reports, including mine

I would hardly call my report unreliable Ned. Unfortunately Blue Ox clearly wanted to decline responsibility, particularly where the base plate was concerned. Why? Because accepting responsibility for the base plate would require a significant amount of labor to remove and replace the base plate. To squirm and try to deflect responsibility because you don't want to answer the question how your supposed #10,000 tow bar and base plate failed to hold onto a #5000 Jeep on a straight level and dry surface, failed.  I don't know why.  But it leaves a very bad taste in my mouth and I will never purchase or recommend one of their products. Ever. 
Just my .02 

Ned never said your report was unreliable, Sarge.  He used the term 'anecdotal reports' which simply means 'short stories'. 


BTW, you mentioned that this tow bar failure happened with a Blue Ox Adventa tow bar.  I think you meant a Blue Ox Aventa tow bar.  Blue Ox made two different types of Aventa tow bars, the Aventa II (which I have) and the Aventa LX.  They both are steel tow bars and both are 10,000# tow bars.  But from your photos, it looks like yours was made of aluminum.  Is that right or was it actually steel?  What Aventa model was it?


Do you have a picture of the other Blue Ox baseplate eyelet that busted?  I'm curious as to what that looked like also.  And another thing that came to my attention is that you mentioned that you now have a new Ready Brake braking system for the jeep.  What happened with the old one, was it damaged at this time too?


I can see how you feel the way you do about Blue Ox; that could have resulted in a very serious accident.  Your story is causing a lot of us Blue Ox owners to put our Blue Ox products under the microscope.  Thanks for the report and the pictures.

Actually there are several meanings to the word anecdotal, although I do not believe Ned was being derogatory. That is not his nature.  And you did catch my spelling error. It is an Aventa, see the below pic of the failed tow bar.  I also included another pic of the failed base plate safety cable attachment point.  If you look closely at the first pic I included, you can see that what looks like a fully circular ring on the base plate is actually just paint.  The front of the steel ring is missing.

The Ready Brake surge system that I was using at the time is fine. It was just the "receiver" brake system. When the tow bar snapped at the articulating ball the brakes locked as designed. The only thing that was left to hold the Jeep after the safety cables ripped out was the 1/8 inch aircraft cable that hooked the surge brake to the brake cable on the front of the Jeep. The brake cable was not really designed to hold the weight of the Jeep without a tow bar, so it pulled loose. 

I still have the receiver Ready Brake that I was using at the time. Other than the busted cable, it is still complete and functioning as normal.  When I decided I had my last go round with Blue Ox, going with the Ready Brute tow bar system was a no brainer.  Less money, incorporated brake, and lifetime warranty to the original purchaser. 

The best part is I sent all of these pics, and more, to Blue Ox within 2 hours of the occurrence.  And the response I get from them a week and a half later is "sorry, you are 30 days past the warranty period from the date of manufacture of the tow bar". 

rsalhus said:

They both are steel tow bars and both are 10,000# tow bars.  But from your photos, it looks like yours was made of aluminum.  Is that right or was it actually steel?  What Aventa model was it?



I can see how you feel the way you do about Blue Ox; that could have resulted in a very serious accident.  Your story is causing a lot of us Blue Ox owners to put our Blue Ox products under the microscope.  Thanks for the report and the pictures.

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Yes, Thank You for this information.  I'm no metallurgist but the fracture line in the first set of photos looks like the "bolt" (or whatever it is) failed while being loaded from the side and it also looks like it might have been cracked before this incident.  The dark, almost, corroded section might be a crack in the metal. 

Like Rsalhus said, it behoves everyone to double check all the parts of the these tow bars to make sure they are in top condition.  I guess I could use a bottle jack to run a load test on the tow bar.  Here I thought the BOx looked stronger and more durable.  We have an older model without the spherical joint.

It's also sad to hear about the lousy tech support from BOx.  If they have product in the field like this, you'd think they would want to know about it, ASAP.  And, like you said, the safety cables/tow plate should have picked up the load no matter what.  Normally, if a product is rated at 10,000 lb working load, it has a margin of at least 3 times that for safety critical parts.  Certainly more than enough to hold the toad during a hard brake situation.  I don't know...

thanks, again.

I've had excellent service from both, but currently have a Blue Ox Aventa LX. I don't think you could go wrong with either one.

Blue Ox rebuilt my towbar at no charge after it was damaged in an accident. No fault of theirs, but they did it anyway.

Well, I never really paid much attention to the base plate cable attachment points until after the incident.  The loops that are punched into the plate are far too close to the edge of the metal to ever withstand and real pressure. Actually I got real lucky that it was just a straight forward stop with no sideways forces to throw the Jeep off it's wheels. Otherwise this would have been an entirely different scenario.  As I mentioned, the road was a 3 lane heavily traveled highway at rush hour. The vehicle breaking loose and spinning out of control would have been a disaster. 

As for the towbar, I believe that the ball design is the weak link in the design. A towbar with a simple grade 8 bolt for a pivot point is a much more robust design.

Again, just my .02

I never trust swaged fittings and have always used chains.  Our chains have been battle tested too   If you want to read my reasons for not using swaged fittings, a little searching on the forum will turn my past messages on the subject.  Hint: it has to do with sailboat rigging.

Hey Ned, for us land lubbers, what is a swagged fitting?

Swaged, I'll let WikiPedia explain it better than I can.  It's not limited to marine fittings.  The major disadvantage of a swaged fitting is you can't see imminent failures without x-raying or magnafluxing the fitting.  That's how we lost a mast.

Ned said:

I never trust swaged fittings and have always used chains. 

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Except when he was flying his Cherokee.  :

LOL Jeff. From one of my earlier messages:

... many moons ago I worked on dockside cranes similar to these. Unlike these container cranes, they scooped iron ore out of ships, but the construction was similar. The very heavy "boom" is raised by cables to allow tall ships to maneuver to the dock, see photo.

BTW we had chains break when a boat trailer separated from the tow vehicle at slow speed. There was no prior visible sign of impending failure 

Jeff said:

Except when he was flying his Cherokee.  :

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Never had a Cherokee.  I like the wing OVER my head so I can see who I'm landing on.

Our chains have been used to swing a Ford Ranger around several times, so I trust them.

Good test  ;D

Thankfully it was only destructive to the Ranger and not the chains