Buying a used Aladdin tow bar, buying the Blue Ox baseplate through a local dealer and installing it myself, and using magnetic mount lights, about $800 total, plus about 10-12 hours of my own labor installing the base plate.
But I do not yet have a braking solution, a Brake Buddy will at least double that cost. So about $1500-1700 before labor, for a "modern" solution, using used parts where available. Maybe $2500 buying everything new, for the parts.
If you had a Jeep with a winch bumper, you could maybe get by with a $200 A-Frame car-mounted tow bar, but even those get pricier when you work towards more convenience, e.g. Roadmaster's Stowmaster is about $500 vs $250 for the A-Frame tracker (vs $600 to $1000 for motorhome-mounted Falcon, Sterling or Blackhawk).
Braking systems can range from about $450 for a ReadyBrake (or other cable-pull surge brake) through $800 - $1200 for a braking box, to more than $2000 for a braking system that integrates with a motorhome's air brakes. If you want surge brakes, the ReadyBrute integrates those into a heavy duty tow bar for not much more than the price of a tow bar.
Then your deal also includes lighting, most likely, which can range from as little as $25 for a pair of magnetic lights through installation of auxiliary lights in existing housings ($60 plus installation) to electrical integration of the two lighting systems using diodes ($35 parts and lots of labor).
Installation labor, both ends, can range from 2-3 hours to 10-12 hours, depending on the complexity of the problem, so considering buying the "best" of everything, and paying someone else to do all the work at a $100-$120 shop rate, $5000-6000 is not out of line. But that might be four to eight times the cost of the cheapest way for a Malibu, buying the parts for the least expensive solutions and doing all the work yourself.
Tom Test
Itasca Spirit 29B
