Curt Hitch Extender for 2" Hitch Receivers - 8" Long

Video Transcript for Curt Hitch Extender for 2" Hitch Receivers Review

Hi everyone, Aiden here with etrailer. Today we're gonna be taking a look at this Curt Hitch Receiver Extender. This is gonna be a great way to get some extra clearance with your hitch mounted accessories, whether it be a bike rack, a cargo carrier, something that you need to get further from your vehicle. This is gonna be a great option for Jeeps, anything with a spare tire in the back, or maybe a truck with a tailgate. A lot of times, accessories like bike racks will conflict with these things and getting a little bit of extra clearance allows us to use those accessories with our vehicles more seamlessly. Let's check it out.

Now we've got this bike rack with my Ford Maverick right now. This is a vehicle that has had a lot of issues with bike racks because where the hitch sits and where the tailgate kind of falls when it opens up, I've never had the ability to fully open it with a bike rack in the hitch. But you can see now with the extender here, we've got just enough room to fully open the tailgate and actually utilize it, get in and out of the bed if I need to and use my vehicle properly even though I do have a bike rack in the hitch. Now, depending on your vehicle, your bike rack, any combination of things, this isn't a guaranteed fix. We'll give you measurements in just a second to make sure it will be a fix for you.

But do know that depending on your setup, you might need a different extender. So a couple things to note about the extender. It's gonna work with a 2" x 2" receiver tube and just extend that 2" receiver tube. It doesn't convert, it doesn't adapt, it's just a 2" x 2". And the measuring you need to keep an eye on is from the center of the hitch pin hole on your hitch to the hitch pin hole on the extender which is gonna be 8".

So wherever your bike rack normally mounts up, you're gonna get an additional 8" of clearance with this extension. Like I said, you might need a different extension whether it be longer or maybe you can go with shorter if you don't need that much. But regardless, that's what this is gonna give you. As far as weight capacity goes, the extender can support a gross towing weight of 3,500 pounds, that's how much weight it can pull, and a maximum tongue weight of 350 pounds, that's that maximum downward pressure on the extender. Now, it is important to note that when using the extender of any kind, that is going to reduce the capacity of your hitch by 50%, so go by the lowest rated component, in this instance, it's probably going to be the hitch that's the lowest rated component, because as we start adding more and more weight further out from that hitch, it's going to be harder to support, so make sure you're not overloading anything and hauling everything safely.

This doesn't come included with a hitch pin and clip, so you will need to provide one yourself. And it's important to note that even though your bike rack or your accessory probably has an anti-rattle device included or built in with it, the hitch pin and clip you're picking up isn't going to have any sort of anti-rattle properties with it. So in that case, I do recommend using some sort of supplementary anti-rattle device and make sure that everything's just a little bit more solid going down the road. Now, one potential downside to using a hitch extender, especially full-time on a vehicle that needs it, is you might not have the same sort of clearance issues with the rack folded up. Some vehicles, when a rack folds up, it doesn't stick out very far at all and you might be able to pull it into your garage and close the door behind it, which is nice because you don't have to worry about leaving it out in the elements. But if you are using a hitch extender, it is gonna leave the accessory sticking out a little bit further, so if you're the kind of person that leaves your bike rack in the hitch full-time, so it's ready to go whenever you want to go out, this is gonna make it a little bit more obtrusive. And that's really all there is to it. Not everyone needs a hitch extender, but if you have a vehicle like mine or with a spare tire where clearance is often an issue with your bike racks, then this is gonna be a great addition. For me, this is something I'll probably end up using quite often if I'm carrying a bike rack, just because I love the ability to open up and actually use my tailgate. Even with the bikes loaded up on this particular rack, I can fully open it and get to things in the bed of my truck, which is great. It enhances the overall functionality of my vehicle, and I'm not having to make any sort of sacrifices when I'm going out biking. Thanks for watching.