Charge Line Cost

As you know we bought a 2013 C-Max Energi 3 weeks ago. After 450 miles of local driving we still have over half of our dealer's tank of gas!! Plug in on 110 every night.We are very pleased with it!

Just finished tow setup yesterday. We paid $1040 labor for base plate, charge line, Ready Brake install, lights,, break away, and wiring/ installing Ready Brake monitor in motor home. That included time to tweak the two together and get us ready to pull out. We bought all our own materials which was about $1150 total. We went with light bulbs not diodes so didn't mess with car's wiring. One caution: we ended up with some plastic dust in the tail light lenses. Electrostatic and would not blow out. We are going to attempt to get that out ourselves later. Towed great yesterday coming home from shop! Ready to try it on a longer trip now!! :)

Ordered parts from Hitch Source and Amazon! We already owned a new tow bar, so that is not included in price. Had to buy everything else for it though,including safety cables.

you can purchase 6 to 7 pin and 7 to 6 pin adapters for your umbilical cord so you do not have to buy a complete new cord.

Thanks again for the additional information. We are almost sure we are going to purchase the Ford C-Max (2013)if we can find what we want. It would be ideal if everything could come out of one cord to supply all of the requirements for towing. I think I read in prior posts that someone was using a magnetic light bar for brake lights and signals to avoid messing up the wiring in the car. We would of course still add the charge line for the 12 volt power in the car.

JL7456 wrote:
There has been a lot of discussion on charge lines being added to supply 12v to the toad. What is a reasonable cost for materials and installation by a dealer? I assume the ideal time to add a charge line is when the toad is being setup for towing. Is the 12 volts coming from the MH to the toad on a separate line? Does the plug on the back of the MH need to be modified?

Who ever does your lights should also take care of your charge line. You want everything in the same plug. Cost will depend upon what has to be done to your MH to get the power back to the plug mount at the rear of your MH. The portion in the C-Max is easy and is only a short distance. Make sure a fuse is mounted inline between the connection in the C-Max and the plug mount in the front of the C-Max. I also have an additional fuse in the MH portion of the line. I already had a power line going to the rear of MH from a past toad tranny pump. Just converted it for the C-Max. Good Luck!

rocmoc n AZ/Mexico

et2 wrote:
Some toads don't require a charge line. Most Jeeps don't need it. If the key has to stay on in the toad you'll probably need one. Or pulling fuses is the option.

It is required for a Ford C-Max if you are going to pull more than a couple of hours/day and/or more than a single day. If you do not have a charge line you will have to run the car to charge the gas engine start battery before you pull any additional time. We have a C-Max and learned from not having our embil cord fully plugged in.

rocmoc n AZ/Mexico

Some toads don't require a charge line. Most Jeeps don't need it. If the key has to stay on in the toad you'll probably need one. Or pulling fuses is the option.

Thank You Tropical36 DG for the excellent information. I am not ready to do this yet as I have not purchased the new toad. I do have the existing connector plug on the back of the RV and the umbilical cord but it may have to be changed depending on the connector on the front of the new car. I have towed before but have sold the old car and now we are searching for the best new vehicle to tow and are seriously looking at a Ford C-Max Hybrid. I was just trying to get an estimated total cost for all of the things required to start towing again. Thanks Again!!

accidental post

JL7456 wrote:
There has been a lot of discussion on charge lines being added to supply 12v to the toad. What is a reasonable cost for materials and installation by a dealer? I assume the ideal time to add a charge line is when the toad is being setup for towing. Is the 12 volts coming from the MH to the toad on a separate line? Does the plug on the back of the MH need to be modified?

I wouldn't take it to a dealer and best find someone who can do it for you, to save you an almost sure exorbitant fee, since it sounds like, you're not going to attempt it yourself. Anyway, it would depend and a lot of coaches already have it wired in to the umbilical's receptacle, if it's a standard 7 pin. Now the umbilical will have to have the extra wire, if not already connected inside the plugs. Then depending on the receptacle and pin number that's being used on the front of the toad, will dictate on what it will take to go from there to the toad's battery positive terminal. If none of this is available or in partial, one could save a lot of trouble and expense, by tying a #10awg wire alongside the existing umbilical and with a little external connector on each end, to match up on both the coach and the toad and go from there. In this instance, there's very little cost for parts, even with an inline 30amp fuse holder on each end of the batteries and very little expertise and labor involved, as well.
Hope this helped, rather than confuse and maybe you have a friend that you can confide in.

docj wrote:
As for the Toad Charge being too expensive, I didn't think the ~$80 to be a bad deal Toad Charge. You get a circuit breaker, a charge controller (that prevents the toad's battery from receiving charge unless the MH is running and also prevents backflow from the toad to the MH battery) plus all necessary wire and connectors. I'm sure I could have found all the pieces separately and saved a few bucks, but IMHO sometimes it's nice to have everything packaged for you. I didn't have to run to Home Depot even once during the installation!

Agree that $80 for the toad charge product isn't necessarily a *bad* deal. Its just not the 'best' deal when a product from RVi gives you nearly the same thing and costs almost half as much (see my last post). Thats why I said the Toad Charge was expensive.

If I was going to purchase a product for this purpose instead of just buying parts and putting it together, I would go with the RVi product.

In addition to the cost difference, it just seemed from what I recall reading about the installation of the two products, that the RVi one was a bit more simple to install.

As for the charge line going through the umbilical cord on RVi, and the wire in it not being stout enough to handle the current a charge line may have: Well, thats why you fuse the line appropriately on either end. Going through the umbilical cord has worked fine for us. If you need it to handle more current than is appropriate for the wires in the umbilical cord, you can run a charge wire separate from the umbilical cord with either product.

Will