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If you do trackdays some circuits insist that you have both front and rear tow eyes fitted in the event of an emergency crew needing to move your car as quickly as possible from the cat litter or worse. I am told by racing driver Anna Walewska who currently competes in the VW Cup that this is increasingly a requirement. I suppose that it's because The Nurburgring is officially a public toll road, that they don't like you to have your front tow eye fitted there. It's not a good idea to have your front one in place for road use in case it does serious harm to someone and I expect that an insurance company would use this against you if a claim was being made.
Road cars are normally supplied with just the one tow eye and the fitting points are covered, in case you wondered what that little closed flap was in your rear bumper. On the Mk5 GTI you have to unscrew and remove the foglight panel on the drivers side.
^ Is that who I think it is? Yes it is! Mr Hurdy at Spa ^
If you have an oem rear bumper or exhaust trim it's not a problem. For the front, most people just remove the whole front foglight panel but it's not very elegant. At least on a full-on race car it's a detail which hardly matters amongst all the stickers and repair patches etc. But this does depend a bit on the class of competing car - The Ferrari's are usually far less bodged.
There are three different types of tow eyes that I am aware of : -
1 - The oem metal bar supplied with the car: VW part # 1T0 805 615 A - About £14.
2 - A hinged anodised aluminium tow eye supplied from the Far East by Cox in a range of colours.
3 - A heavy duty nylon material strap tow loop by TRS (Japan) with metal plate.
The oem bar is the most solid and dependable and threads anti-clockwise.
^ My carbonfibre panels had to be drilled ^
Although very stylish I wonder how strong the aluminium hinged one would be when subjected to whatever an emergency crew will deem as necessary - Using brute strength is often normal in those circumstances. They are supposed to take 1.5 tons but the manufacturer states they are also for show purposes! They cost over 200 US dollars!
The nylon strap by TRS is very lightweight but quickly looks dirty and faded after being exposed to weather. I don't doubt their strength as I know they have been thoroughly tested through use. The main problem with attaching these to the GTI is doing so tidily and without using additional metal hardware linkage which create weak spots.
Here are some typical race car tow loops : -
Whatever type you use, let's hope you need them as seldom as possible
