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Custom designed to fit your vehicle so it can be safely towed behind your RV, this base plate has easily removable arms that offer a seamless look when you're not flat towing. Base plate bolts directly to your chassis, so no welding is required.
Features:
Specs:
This base plate's hidden design creates a clean and seamless look. The bracket arms are easily removable, creating a slick appearance when you're not flat towing. Because the arms can be removed, you also won't have to worry about banging your leg into any protruding arms when you walk by.
Attaching and removing the bracket arms is a breeze. To attach the arms to the base plate, simply insert them into the receivers and rotate them until they lock into place. Once you're finished towing and want to remove the arms, pull the pin to disengage the lock, rotate the arms, and remove them from the receivers. Finally, plug up the now empty receivers with the included receiver covers to help keep dirt and debris out of the base plate and provide a finished look.
Flat towing your vehicle is much more convenient than using a trailer or a tow dolly. These other options take up much more storage space, leaving you less room both at home and at the campsite. In addition, securing your vehicle to a trailer or tow dolly can be a hassle and more time consuming than hooking up with a tow bar.
There are 5 basic components needed when flat towing a vehicle: a tow bar, a base plate kit, a safety cable set, tow bar wiring, and a supplemental braking system.
The tow bar links your towed car to your motorhome. It attaches to the custom-fit base plates that install on the frame of your towed car. Safety cables ensure that your towed car does not separate from your motorhome in the event that your tow bar becomes detached. Tow bar wiring allows your towed vehicle's signal lights to sync up with your motorhome's tail lights, which is required by law in most states. Finally, the supplemental braking system - also required in most states - brakes your towed car when the brakes in your motorhome are activated, preventing wear on the motorhome and decreasing braking distance for your entire setup.
Videos are provided as a guide only. Refer to manufacturer installation instructions and specs for complete information.
Clayton: Hey guys, Clayton here at etrailer.com. Today, we'll be taking a look at, and I'll show you how to install, a Blue Ox base plate on our 2009 Infiniti G37. Now there are six main components when we're flat towing a vehicle. We need our base plate, our tow bar, our wiring, our braking system, our safety chains, and our brake light relay. So our base plate is going to allow us to tow our Infinity here behind our RV. So a base plate is a steel construction.
It's finished in a nice black powder coat finish. It's going to resist any rust or corrosion over time. This component here is a removable arm. It's very easy to take out. You simply pull this, twist it over, then we can slide our arm out.
And as you can see, it's going to tuck behind our fascia here, which makes a nice clean look when we're not flat towing our vehicle. And then when we re-install it, push it in like that, pull our tab over, and then it'll snap into place and you're ready to go.So this is where our tow bar is going to connect. All we do is pull our tow bar out, slide it into place, take our pin, slide it through, and make sure to put our safety on there. And then you're good to go. This is a Blue Ox tow bar.
This plate here is for our safety chains. Our safety chains are designed if our arms fail that our vehicle will not just disappear down the road. We're going to hook our safety chains up in a crisscross pattern underneath our vehicle. We'll take those and snap them in right here. Our tow bar is going to mount right up to the chassis of our vehicle.
This is going to give us a nice sturdy connection point for our tow bar when we're flat towing our vehicle. In terms of installation, getting our base plate on really isn't that bad. We do have to remove our fascia, drill some holes and trim some plastic, but overall it's pretty straight forward.Speaking of installation, I'll show you how to get this installed now. To start our installation, we need to remove seven push pins right here in the front of our bumper. I'm going to use a body trim panel tool to take these out, but you can't also use a flathead screwdriver. Then under our panel here, there's going to be a 10 millimeter inaudible 00:02:09 socket. We'll take that off. This will be located on both sides. So now we're going to move underneath our vehicle. There's going to be 10 10 millimeter bolts that are going to run the length of our fascia, right on the front. We're going to remove those now. So now we're going to take off the three 10 millimeter bolts right here. Those will be on both sides. So you want to repeat the same process on either side. So now we're going to remove a push pin fastener and our wheel well. It's going to be the one right here, down towards the front, in front of our tire, in you use a body trim panel tool to get that push pin off. We repeat that process on the other side.Our next step is going to be to remove a 10 millimeter bolt inside of our fender liner. So I'm going to take a plastic FRY tool, pull back our fender liner, and take out that 10 millimeter bolt. With that bolt removed you repeat the same process on the passenger side. And then just a good thing I like to do is add a little bit of painter's tape on our body line here. And I'll follow that line up here. That's just going to protect our paint when we take the fascia off. That way if it shifts, it doesn't scratch. Then you're going to add tape on your fascia side too, just for a little extra protection. Now that our body edge is taped, we now remove our fascia. I would suggest to start from the outside and work towards the middle. Once you get towards the middle, it's good to grab an extra set of hands, just so we don't drop our bumper.Then as you're pulling off your fascia, you want to make sure if you have fog lights or any sort of wiring, you don't just pull the bumper off because you'll rip that wiring out. So you want to get the bumper loosely taken off and then you can unplug your connections. As we we're taking off our fascia, we realized there was another 10 millimeter bolt that was not mentioned in our instructions. It's located right here. So we'll take that off on both sides and then our fascia will come down. With the other two bolts removed, we can now remove this part of our fascia. With the last part of our fascia removed, we can lift our fascia out of place. This model doesn't have any fog lights, so we're good. We can set this off to the side without scratching our paint.Next thing we take off our foam that covers our bumper. This will simply just pull out and this will expose our bolts for our bumper beam. So next we remove our bumper beam bolts, they're going to be 12 millimeters. There will be four on each side. Then before we remove the rest of our bolts on our bumper beam, we want to make sure to unsnap any wiring that's going to be connected to it, just in case that bumper beam falls off we don't rip our wiring. With all of our hardware disconnected from our bumper beam, we can now set it off to the side and go onto our next step.On our driver's side, we're going to remove this plastic cover that covers our frame. You'll pull that off here. There's a couple little tabs right here that you can push down. You do that on both sides. You can pull this off with our hose and set it off to the side. Next we're going to cut this plastic cover off. We're going to follow this line right here off of our body, to this line right here. I'm going to follow that all the way back and remove that part of our cover. And for this, you can use a utility knife, pocket knife, or snips. You just want to be careful because this might move on you. Don't want to cut anything underneath it. Just follow that line and toss us some trash.Next, we're going to pop out this tab holding in our hose. Pop that out. I'll do this one down here just to give us a little bit more clearance. Since our model's a convertible, we need to remove our dampener. This will not be reinstalled. We're going to use a 14 millimeter socket on both sides. There's going to be four bolts that we're going to take off. With all of our hardware removed, we can take off our dampener. Like I said, this will not be reinstalled. So next we're going to remove this 10 millimeter bolt right here. This is the bracket that holds on our hoses. With that removed, we'll get a little bit more play out of our hoses. Next there's going to be three 10 millimeter bolts that hold on the inaudible 00:07:27. One here, then two underneath. I've already taken off the bottom two, I'll go ahead and take off the top one and let our cooler hang down. If you're taking it too far, you do want to support it because you don't want to break your hoses.Next up, we're going to cut off this tab. I've went ahead and marked it. We can use a rotary tool with a cutoff wheel. And with our tab off, we can come back and clean up this edge with a file. And now we can grab an extra set of hands, hold our base plate up into place, make sure it's fit and snug, and then we can clamp it down. With our base plate clamped into place, now we can drill out our holes. What we're doing is just take our 13 30 seconds drill bit, drill through here just a mark, then I'll come back with a smaller bit and do a pilot hole, and slowly work my way up. As long as we have these two drilled out, we're going to come to the bottom where there will be two spots for holes, and you want to use the back one. So now we need to drill out our inch and a quarter access hole for our handle nuts. I'm going to go ahead and drill a pilot hole now. We want to make sure we're using a smaller bit inaudible 00:08:46 for our hole.So now we need to drill our instrument quarter access hole for our handle nuts. You want to keep in mind where your windshield washer fluid tank is just so that when you're drilling, you're not hitting that. I'm going to go just a little bit above this bolt and that will give us plenty of room. So now we need to install our hardware. We're going to take our hex nut provided with a lock washer and some red lock tight. We're going to take a handle nut, put it through our access hole, then our bolt up inaudible 00:09:27. This can be kind of challenging, just trying to find that handle nut. Once you find it, you can start threading it. And you repeat that process for the other side. While our directions say to do this one first, I found it much easier to do the bottom, do the top, and then do the middle bolt on this side.inaudible 00:09:52 our hardware, hand tie it down. We come back and snub that down with a 14 millimeter socket. With our hardware tightened down, you want to repeat that process on our other side. So we'll come back and torque down our hardware. All of your torque specs will be listed in your instruction manual. You want to repeat this process for all the rest of our hardware. With all of our hardware torqued down, we're going to come back and cut off the rest of our handle nuts. You can use 10 snips to do this. We're going to come back and hit our hole with some clear coat. That'll just help prevent any rust from where our hole saw cut. And you'll make sure to want to do this on both sides.So I'm going to mount our ambient temperature sensor on this side, but our instructions say that there's a bracket off of the center beam, which in our case there's not. So I'm going to go ahead and run it to this factory wiring over here and make sure that it's secure. I'm just going to zip tie it for stability. You do want to make sure that the sensor is completely secure and not hanging freely. Our instructions had us move this factory wiring. I went ahead and snapped that back in to the spots, that was just so we had clearance to get our base plate in.So now we need to go ahead and remount our cooler. This is mounted with three 10 millimeter bolts. We'll go ahead and do our center middle and thread that in by hand. And we'll tighten down the rest of them. We have one 10 millimeter bolt for our hose bracket. With tied down, we can add our bumper beam. So now we can take our bumper beam, re-install, and add our 12 millimeter hardware. So I ran our safety cables up and around our frame rail back here. You want to make sure you're not coming into contact with any hoses or anything that moves underneath the vehicle. Now, once you have your ring tightened down, then go back with a 15 millimeter wrench and make sure that this is completely tight. And you want to repeat that process on the other side.So our base plate is completely installed and we'll leave our fascia off just to put on our braking system and our wiring. Then we'll want to put our fascia back on in reverse order that we took it off. But keep in mind, we're going to have to trim out our fascia for our attachment points. All right, now we're going to want to grab an extra set of hands, hold our fascia up into place, and check where we're going to need to trim it. So all of our components fall in this mesh material here. So we'll just kind of eyeball it and figure out where it's going to fall and then we'll come in and trim it out. So that's going to do it for a look at an installation of our Blue Ox base plate on our 2009 Infiniti G37..
Average Customer Rating: 4.8 out of 5 stars (3041 Customer Reviews)
Custom designed to fit your vehicle so it can be safely towed behind your RV, this base plate has easily removable arms that offer a seamless look when you're not flat towing. Base plate bolts directly to your chassis, so no welding is required.
The size of the box terrified me but I had to do this one myself.
This project is not for the faint of heart. When you think about what could go wrong you could wet yourself. I went with my gut and just opened the box. Hmmm, packaged very well with everything you need for the install. No going to the hardware store for this or that. Sat there with a cold sarsaparilla and read the very detailed instructions, went back to the etrailer web site and checked out some vids and pics. Hmm, it didn’t seem that daunting of a job. On my 04 Lexus GX470 most of the holes were drilled. Before I knew it 5 hours had past and I owned a toad! I took it to my local Rv service center for an inspection and it was deemed safe to use.
This thing is awesome, tracs straight as an arrow.
Now, I have to figure out this diode lighting kit. Camping is fun! Yah!!! :) Noah and etrailer made this a tolerable project. I urge everyone to take advantage of the resources that are on this sight. I always learn something when I’m there. See y’all on the trail….Rod
Well, I'm glad I'm good with tools, grinders, drills, and such. It was not just bolt-on dal. The car grill was able to be used any longer as it was too tight of a fit. Some of the lower fascia had to be trimmed and also removed OEM nuts from the front, the angle wouldn't allow the stock nuts to work. But in the end, I got to work out. So prepare to spend around 4-6 hours playing with it to get it to work. I am positive it's going to work as intended.
everything bolted up easy, i simply drilled hole’s into were needed and supplied my own bolts straight through for easy installation.
I am really happy, not only with the product but the customer care I received. Very quick and helpful!!
I would make one suggestion. Take the headlights out when doing this on a Chevy Cobalt. It will make it much easier to get to the 3 bolt holding the fender to the fascia.
This kit fit well, had decent instructions, and performed perfectly every time once installed. If doing the install yourself, you'll need some metal fabrication tools to notch the D-ring plates behind the bumper but it's not complicated, just a little time consuming depending on the tools you're using. The look is also a little weird on the front of a new Bronco since you're losing the burly bumper D-rings, but it's a well engineered setup overall. I only used the tow bar setup a couple times before the vehicle was lost in a wildfire so I can't comment on the longevity, but I have no doubt it would still be working fine today.
I will start with the people that work here at etrailer are great to deal with and very helpful! These baseplates for my 2023 bronco have been great. i bought and installed myself. install pretty straight forward. and these work great for flat towing my bronco behind my motorhome.
eTrailer was very helpful in choosing the correct hitch for our rv and car. They also provided a special brake application in the car that makes it super easy for toad braking.
I am 72, and I hook up this toad and pull it with confidence. The instructions to hook up the toad was presented with ease. They knew exactly what they were doing, and we didn't rush through the demonstration. I would recommend eTrailer to anyone.
Installed successfully on my 2024 Trax LT. However, with respect to the following installation steps, I made some changes:
All - Don't use a reciprocating saw! An oscillating tool and saw attachment works best, allowing more precise cuts.
Step #8 - After consultation with BlueOx Tech Support, I elected to re-install the plastic shroud. Wasn't difficult and I felt better about maintaining the integrity of the original equipment.
Step #28 - I moved the temperature sensor to a forward facing position in the grill section directly above the baseplate.
Baseplate installation went pretty smooth with no surprises. I chose to separate the lower grill piece while I had the bumper cover off. This allowed me to install the bumper cover over the baseplate and then accurately determine where to make my cuts in the grill for the baseplate protrusions. The Blue Ox base plate is well made and fit perfectly.
Etrailer offered competitive pricing for the base plate and the package was shipped promptly and arrived very quickly...much faster than I had anticipated.
The packaging was excellent and included all documentation. Installation was very straightforward and the unit was a perfect fit with minimal modifications to the car itself. Only a few small pieces of plastic had to be trimmed for a perfect fit.
We did have some trouble with 2 of the nuts-with-wires attached in that the bolts did NOT want to thread in to them. For some reason, they just did not want to 'start' easily and this made the blind installation of the nuts on the bolts extremely time-consuming. The nuts/bolts did not cross-thread and there were no other issues once we were able to use a tool to jam the blind nut and stop it from moving so that the bolt could be tightened and torqued. 4 of the 6 went in smoothly and with zero issues, so do I not believe that it was 'installer error' (!).
In the end, a perfect installation and the base plate is nearly invisible. I would definitely purchase from eTrailer again and can easily recommend their products based on this experience.
The hitch is a great product; however, the installation is not a bolt on and you are done process as I was led to believe. It is highly doable with a little fudging, die grinding to fit, and tweaking. The grainy instruction pictures leave a lot to be desired. It looks good on my 2014 Suzuki SX4 and I am glad to have it, but even as an experienced body shop man it is still a challenge to install. Would I do it again, yes, without hesitation. It is solid, durable, and looks good in my grill.
Pretty easy to do my self but the instructions could have been a bit larger with more pictures. I think the hardest part was drilling the holes to attach the two brackets as there was only one hole on each frame. Getting the square nuts with wire attached were difficult to get both aligned because the wire on the first one got in the way each time
My only negative comment is that this base plate sets the tow bar connections 23" above the ground making it somewhat of a pain to fine towbar and hitch connections. It mounts relatively easy.
Everything as advertised. Followed the videos and instructions for installing the base plates and tow bar and all were good. Did a test pull today and it towed great, straight as a dye. I only have 2 suggestions. There was no mention in the video of the space plate, which was included. Figured it out. Second suggestion, Install a 2" ball on your work bench and adjust the receiver to it. The instructions tell you what socket to adjust it with but that could have been done on the bench before shipping. Great product, so excited. We are off on a few hundred mile trip with the Fit behind the motorhome Wednesday. So excited. No more tow dolly.
This kit was installed on my 2018 Toyota Tacoma TRD Sport 4x4 last summer. The directions aren't too bad if you have mechanical aptitude. It seemed that there could have been an easier mounting method. The nuts with wires welded on so you can snake them into place inside the box frame were definitely a pain in the a$$. You will need to have plenty of patience. A vehicle lift would also be an asset. It worked as well as any other Blue Ox baseplate we have had for other vehicles so no issues there.
Bought it at etrailer as I have with other trailer hitch related parts. Installed it myself, and it was a real job. I figure about 10 hours to get it right so I didn't have to worry if my 'toad' would pass my motorhome as I tooled down the road. Fit was perfect for my 2008 Honda CRV, but make sure you keep that oil cooler line up as high as possible or you will be redoing the fit to get the front cowling back on the car. Bought an angle grinder with cutoff wheels and that made the frame notching a lot easier. Note that if the removeable attachment pins are a tight fit into the base plate, they will loosen up with a good silicone lubricant and the wear of towing. I have towed with confidence for a year without a hitch (pun intended).
It turned out fine but my opinion is that you should have some average or above mechanical skills to install this yourself. As you can see, the base plate protrusions are hardly noticeable at a distance with the tow pins removed. One thing worth mentioning is I had to mount it more rearward on the frame because the front valance would not mount back on correctly. Overall, good base plate.
The Bx2692 is the better tow bar solution because it is higher up to hopefully keep your tow bar flat. I modified a Base bumper to install this because it is only available for the "Modular" and "Capable" bumpers. The base bumper option from bluox is for lower tow hook delete option. Took about 3hrs with the help of a grinder jigsaw and multi tool.
The item I received must have been a returned item. The box label was proof it was shipped to someone else before. Reason I'm not happy is because the bag of screws was open and most of it slipped out of the holes of the damaged box that was opened before and re-taped. The end of the crossbar was bent and not much packing inside. I needed this for our trip, so I didn't return it and had to fix and find screws to make it all work.
This baseplate fit perfectly and was a pretty easy instal after removing the bumper wrap on my wrx. Car pulls steady and straight!!
etrailers customer service is excellent. The item was back ordered, the customer service folks kept me informed on the projected delivery the entire time. And the Blue Ox part are really high quality. Only one minor issue, the bolts, nuts and washers bag was opened and the box had a large crack. Lost a few small pieces, not a big deal I have plenty of spares in the shop. Thanks etrailer
We had this base plate kit professionally installed on my wife's 2017 GMC Acadia and we've used it as our tow vehicle with no problems. It's easy to connect to the Blue Ox system we bought from etrailer and it's worked out great!
This Base plate was fairly simple to install in about 1/2 a day. I also installed brake kit and wiring so actually spent most of the day. This baseplate combined with the etrailer tow bar have been great. already pulled over 5000 miles with no issues at all. I love this setup and will never go back to tow dolly
Just what I needed to flat tow my Jeep Wrangler. When I first received the base plate I was thinking about having it installed, but after watching the etrailer.com installation video I decided to do it myself. Couldn't have asked for a smoother install. The permanent base plate safety cables concerned me a little. I came up with a figure-8 over the frame that I think will work ok and I did secure it with some cable ties in a couple of spots.
Thanks to Nick at etrailer for the help and to the folks that made the installation video giving me the confidence to do-it-myself.
The images in the instructions are not of good quality, but installation is pretty straightforward. Be sure you know which bumper bolts to remove (the images are blurry), and do not forget to unplug AND unclip the wiring harness on the driver's side before removing the bumper so you are not pulling on wires while handling an awkward and heavy bumper.
The baseplate was slightly wider than my frame, so it had to go straight up, and I had to use a floorjack and block of wood to help push it into place. Ten holes are drilled into the frame, which requires some time and a very good drill and bit. Drilling vertically is relatively easy, and you can use, for example, a long-handled tool between the ground and drill to gain leverage (note: you need to reduce pressure when the sound of the drill changes, as that means you are almost through the frame; also, keep your arms locked straight so you do not lose control of the drill!). Drilling horizontally is a bit more challenging in terms of leverage, but again, use a very good drill bit (or have a second bit handy as the first bit gets dull). Keep in mind that there will be a lot of metal shavings coming down, and avoid getting those directly on your skin (they will be hot).
The nuts come with wires welded to them to help fish the nuts into place, but the access to the drilled holes isn't such that you really need wires on the nuts. Once the bolts are torqued to spec (torque setting depends on grade of bolts), you can either fold the wires into the frame, or clip the ends of the wires (which is what I did). I would not install without torquing the bolts to spec (don't really only on your impact, for example).
Reinstalling the bumper includes some effort to line it up in the original position, with even gaps with the body. You should be able to set the bumper on, loosely install one nut on either side to hold it, then get it close by sliding under the bumper and tightening the nuts in their original positions (based on marks from where the nuts had tightened originally. Having a buddy helps is a good idea, but I installed everything on my own.
I had the advantage of being a former auto tech, and long ago, a hitch installer, so there are some tricks to know. However, some basic skills and patience are all that are really necessary in this case.
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