What is the best base plate?

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artdecamper

Member
Joined
Dec 7, 2010
Posts
20
Location
Alberta, Canada
I'm preparing my 2007 Canyon for dinghy towing. Have a Blue Ox Aventa LX tow bar and on my last dinghy had the blue ox base plate. Demco also make a base plate that is apparently compatible with this tow bar.  Is there any preference or ease of installation or price. Appreciate any feed back.

Thx Art
 
I'm very happy with the Blue Ox base plates. Not sure why you would even consider another manufacturer if you already have the Aventa towbar. For one thing, it opens up the possibility of finger pointing in the [unlikley] event there is some problem with either one.
 
I had a horrible experience with a Blue Ox base plate. The safety cable eyelets ripped out in a failure situation. Go with the Demco. I have heard good things about their products.
 
I have had 4 Demco base plates and have been happy with all. I have used the Blue Ox tow bar with all.

A friend has been unhappy with his Blue Ox base plate. The removable attachments on the front have caused trouble.
 
We compared Demco, Roadmaster and Blue Ox, reading through all the installation instructions and determining where the height would end up on the car. Blue Ox won over because of the height and the appearance/ease of getting the front end back to normal (just remove nibs). I do believe that the Blue Ox was the hardest of all the installs for our car and in the case of our Vue, I do believe we lost what appeared to be a crumple zone but we are very happy with the outcome and have had no problems do date (crossing fingers).  Took us across 3 days to install (try cutting a square notch in double steel plates with a reciprocating saw  ??? ::) ).
 
Thanks for the feed back. The Blue Ox for the Canyon doesn't have removable tabs, same as the Demco. In further review of both the install instructions, I discovered that the Blue Ox has a plate that goes under the frame as well on each side with an additional bolt, that 33 1/3% more attachment. Based on that alone plus previous satisfaction I'm going to stick with the Blue Ox.
 
We have a 2007 Canyon with the Blue Ox base plate and it's been solid for over 5 years.  The integral attachment points for the safety chains are much more reliable than the swedged ball type fitting too.  I also prefer chains over cables, they've proven to be fail safe on our vehicles.  I don't trust any swedged fittings.
 
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