Coupling up: the hitch-up checklist that stops driveway disasters

Three years ago, at a servo just north of Ballarat on the Midland Highway, I watched a bloke pull out of the fuel bay with his jockey wheel still down. Sparks for about eight metres before he heard the yelling and stopped. No harm done except to his pride and a jockey wheel bracket that cost him $180 to replace. It's the sort of thing that happens to people who've hitched up a thousand times and got complacent, not just first-timers. I've been towing full-time since 2017 and I still do a lap of the rig before I pull onto the road, every single time, because the coupling process is where the small mistakes live.

This isn't a "how to reverse" or a "what's ATM vs GVM" piece — we've done those elsewhere on the site. This is the physical act of coupling the van to the car, done in an order that actually catches problems before they become expensive or dangerous ones. It sounds basic. It's the step most experienced tourers skip because it feels beneath them, and it's the step that catches out experienced tourers most often, in my experience, not novices.

Start with the tow ball, not the van

Before you back the car anywhere near the van, check the tow ball itself. Is it the right size for your coupling? Sounds obvious, but 50mm balls and 70mm balls (increasingly common on heavier off-road setups) get mixed up more than you'd think, especially if you've swapped tow bars or borrowed a mate's car for a trip. Check the ball is torqued to the manufacturer's spec — most are around 200-330Nm depending on the tow bar, and a ball that's worked loose over a few thousand kilometres of corrugations is a real thing I've seen happen, not a theoretical risk.

Grease it. A dry ball wears the coupling head faster and makes for a rougher, noisier connection when you're navigating tight track sections. I keep a small tin of grease in the tow vehicle's glovebox for exactly this, and I top it up every second or third hook-up.

Lower the van onto the ball, then lock it — in that order

Line up the coupling directly over the ball before you start winding the jockey wheel down. This seems obvious until you're doing it solo in a caravan park with your partner directing from the mirror and getting it a few centimetres out. Get the alignment close with the tow vehicle position first, then fine-tune with the jockey wheel and a bit of muscle on the van's A-frame if needed.

Lower the coupling onto the ball fully — you should feel and often hear it seat. Then engage the locking mechanism, whatever style yours is: over-centre lever, screw-down clamp, or the pin-and-clip style on some off-road hitches like the Hyland or McHitch. Whatever you've got, physically check it's locked by trying to lift the coupling off the ball with your hand. If it lifts, it's not locked. This is the single most important check in the whole process and it takes four seconds.

I've had readers tell me they've towed for years without ever doing this lift-test. Don't be that person. A coupling that looks locked and a coupling that is locked can look identical from a metre away.

Safety chains and the breakaway cable

Cross the safety chains under the A-frame in a figure-eight pattern so if the coupling does fail, the van's nose drops onto the chains rather than digging into the road. Most states require the chains to be rated to at least the aggregate trailer mass, and every state road authority publishes the specific requirement — check your state's road transport authority or the relevant Australian Road Rules reference if you're not sure yours are rated correctly. Don't just eyeball a chain that came with the van in 2019 and assume it's still fine; look for rust, stretched links, or a shackle that's worn thin.

The breakaway cable is the one people forget entirely. It needs to be attached to the tow vehicle chassis or a dedicated anchor point, not looped around the tow ball itself (if the coupling fails, a cable looped on the ball fails with it). Give it enough slack to turn tightly without snapping taut, but not so much slack that it drags. This cable is what applies the van's own brakes independently if it ever separates from the car, which is the difference between a controlled stop and a runaway trailer. It's cheap insurance that takes ten seconds to check and gets ignored constantly.

Electrics: plug, then test, don't assume

Plug in the 7-pin or 12-pin connector, then actually test it. Indicators, brake lights, tail lights, reverse lights if wired, and the electric brake controller if you're running one. I do this with my partner standing behind the van while I cycle through indicators and brakes from the driver's seat, on every single hitch-up, not just the first one of the trip. Corrosion in a plug, a pin that's worked loose, a fuse that's blown since last time — any of these will show up in thirty seconds of testing and none of them show up if you just plug in and drive.

If you're running a brake controller, do a manual activation before you leave the driveway or the park. You want to feel the van's brakes engage, not just see a light come on. I run an electric brake setup and I've had the controller itself fail quietly, van still rolling with no brake response, and the only reason I caught it before a descent was this exact check.

Jockey wheel, corner stabilisers, chocks

Wind the jockey wheel fully up and lock it in the travel position. This is the one that catches even careful people — that Ballarat servo scenario I opened with. Get in the habit of a visual check of the jockey wheel every time you walk past the front of the van, not just at hitch-up.

Retract all four corner stabilisers fully. A stabiliser leg left even partially down will get torn off or bent the first time you hit a driveway lip or a speed hump, and I've seen both happen. Pull any wheel chocks and store them somewhere you'll actually remember, because chocks left on the ground at a free camp are a $15 problem when you drive off without them and a much bigger problem if another rig runs over one on the way out.

The walk-around, every time

Before you move, walk a full lap of the rig. Check tyre pressures are appropriate for the surface you're about to hit — if you've dropped pressures for gravel and you're about to hit blacktop for 200 kilometres, that's a separate problem, but it's exactly the kind of thing a walk-around catches. Check the van's doors, hatches and annexe are secured. Check nothing's been left on the drawbar, the roof, or under the van. Check the tow vehicle's mirrors are set for towing width, not just daily driving.

I do this walk-around anticlockwise, starting at the tow ball, because that's the habit I built in year one and it's stuck. Doesn't matter which direction you use. What matters is that it's the same sequence every time, because a checklist you follow in a different order each time isn't really a checklist, it's a guess.

None of this is complicated. It's also exactly the sort of routine that gets skipped on day 40 of a lap when you're tired, it's raining, and you just want to get moving. I'd argue the coupling check is more important on day 40 than day one, because that's when complacency actually costs you something. If you're heading somewhere with genuinely rough surfaces waiting at the other end, like the corrugations on the Oodnadatta Track or the river crossings on the Gibb River Road, a coupling fault that would be a minor annoyance on the highway becomes a real problem once you're hours from help. Get the habit right at home, and it holds up out bush.

If you want the full picture on what your rig can and can't handle once it's hitched, our piece on rig ratings is worth a read, and if you're still deciding whether you need a weight distribution hitch on top of all this, we've covered that separately too.

A checklist you can actually use

I keep a laminated card in the tow vehicle's door pocket with the sequence above reduced to about eight lines. It's not because I forget the steps after nine years — it's because a laminated card doesn't have an ego and doesn't skip step four because it's raining. Write your own version, tape it inside a cupboard door in the van, and use it every time until it's automatic. Then keep using it anyway.