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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.
Average Customer Rating: 4.8 out of 5 stars (3015 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.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.
Great products from you guys
While the product was good, the installation manual needs to be updated and cover each step better. The put together after installation was weak.
Earl D.
6/2/2015
The product has performed as advertised Great!
This product is working well. The only issue I had was during installation. The clearance between the unit and the frame of the car was tight. So it took longer than expected to finish. However, I've had no issues with towing.
Mike H.
4/2/2018
No issues with towing. However, rust is a problem. It seems there should be some rust inhibitor used.
I've used tow bars for use with a motorhome, but this application was for a bump grill to open bump gates. We have a '13 C-Max Ford which is what this tow bar was installed on. With the directions and photos of an actual installation, it was way to simple. It showed exactly how to take the front of the car off, the modifications required to bolt this unit to the car and cautionary notes to keep me on course! It turned out looking great and is very solid. I fabricated a grill guard to bump the gate open and it slides into the receiver hitches that are provided normally for the tow bar attach points. It worked out great and I thank etrailer for their help! Great experience at the best price.
Everything great so far, used the hook-up behind our motorhome all Winter down south. We had a 2013 C-max energi before and got the baseplate for it back in 2015 so when we got a newer 2017 C-max I already had experience in how to install the new base plate on this one-no real problems just one minor
hiccup when it came to the horn re-installation-there was not really any instructions on how to do it and I had to really come up with a bracket system that would allow the horn assembly to fit!
Received the base plate from you in record time (helped prepare for trip). INSTALLED IT TODAY AND EVERYTHING WENT GREAT!
Matt D.
8/11/2014
Everything is working perfectly. Fast shipping and ease of installation with provided instructs was great.
John
10/1/2014
did you install it yourself. How long did it take.What did you did you do for wiring harness
Matt D.
10/2/2014
I installed myself good instructions except for horn remou ting. Took about 5-6 hours total. Ran wire harness under car to back then up to tail lights where I installed separate bulbs with sockets from auto parts store. MattD
I am happy with the quality of the base plate kit. Once installed, it is hardly noticeable. This is my second install of a Blue Ox base plate. This one on a Ford C-max and the last on a Saturn Vue. I did the install myself on both. The Saturn Vue was a much more complex install, but was better documented. I found that the detailed instructions assumed that you knew more about the vehicle than I did, which resulted in some difficulty in removing the front fascia. Also found that instructions to trim some plastic parts to refit the windshield washer tank would have resulted in removing the top support of that tank. Also, relocating the horn was difficult as it appears the 2016 horn is different than previous years. Other that that, I would still rate this as a moderately difficult install that a 'home' mechanic could do in a day.
The base plate fits perfectly and is very sturdy. It is low profile and practically invisible. We watched the etrailer.com videos which were most helpful when installing the base plate for our Ford C-Max. It was a challenging installation and could not have done it without the videos which included helpful tips and tricks to complete the install. Thank you.
Everything was packaged and shipped in good condition, and the equipment came in as expected.
Installed yesterday took us al of eight hours. Video was great, however we gave up on the whole saw. The metal is very, very hard. We broke a new hole saw and several bits. My friend who was helping had a gas torch. Should have used it from the get go as we lost over an hour trying to drill the holes. We had to do a lot of trimming for the breakaway bracket for the Break Buddy. BlueOx hides very well on the C-MAX bumper.
Mechanic wasn't sure how to install my baseplate, thought we had the wrong item at the end of the workday. Panic! Called etrailer.com who immediately sent a replacement .... that night!!! Wow. Turns out my mechanic was looking at the wrong YouTube and we had the right baseplate from the beginning. Learning curve. Generously, etrailer.com agreed to let me return the extra baseplate for a credit. Really spectacular customer service. Also, bought other dinghy tow equipment from etrailer.com. Their tech support is also right on good. Can't recommend etrailer.com highly enough.
This base plate fit our 2017 Ford CMax perfect and has worked exactly as we had hoped. Easy to attach the tow bar and provides us with a safe transport each time.
Works perfect. I did a self install and it went better than I thought. The helpfully videos were absolutely necessary for me and it covered every aspect of the job. Anyone can do this themselves.
not for a roadmaster hitch, which is what I ordered in the first place
Towing a Ford c max with a 44’ class a motorhome - no problem
Price was good Blue Ox is an awesome pr oduct.
Bluehen
6/28/2022
Installed and working well. Were very pleased. The CMax is an ideal towing vehicle.
Item was delivered on time.. That was very important..
Great service
Received in perfect condition as reques ted.
Excellent service as always!
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John S.
4/6/2024
One year later and we have had zero problems, as anticipated. Very pleased with Blue Ox products.