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Old 10-18-2016, 08:08 PM
jplinville's Avatar
jplinville jplinville is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Dayton, Ohio region
Posts: 302
First time installing a hitch receiver...

Well, today was a first for me and my son. The Jeep didn't come with the tow package, which wasn't a biggie to me, because I won't tow anything with it. However, after making that decision and taking deliver of the Jeep, I quickly changed my mind...not about towing with it, but the receiver. You see, when we travel or road trip, we like to use the cargo basket I bought for the Tahoe. So, I needed a Class III receiver with 2X2 hole.

Curt makes a nice receiver, that fell in line with my needs...easy install, bolt on, 2X2, and about 400# tongue capacity. We found the one I needed on Amazon for $89, delivered. It came in yesterday, in perfect shape.

I dug up a video from Etrailer that had the exact vehicle I have, and the exact receiver I bought. My son and I watched it 3 times before we began the job. Very simple install...measure where the trim lines needed to be, and trim out a small piece of the fascia. Fron there, suspend a strap between the rear wheels to allow the exhaust to be disconnected from the rear hangars without causing undo stress on the fore mounting points, remove the heat shield, insert receiver and bolts, tighten to prescribed torque, then put the heat shield and exhaust back in place.

It took my son about 75 minutes, counting trips to the basement for forgotten tools, and a cursing fit when the ratchet slipped from his hands and landed on his forehead.

No holes to be drilled at all...simple plug and play, so to speak. I wish I had known that these were so easy to do...I would have done it to past vehicles.

I tried it out with the cargo shelf, and it did very well. Bring on the road trip!!!
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