Curt Trailer Hitch Receiver with Standard Drawbar - Custom Fit - Class I - 1-1/4"

Video Transcript for Trailer Hitch Installation - 2015 Chevrolet Cruze - Curt C11282

On this 2015 Chevrolet Cruze, we're going to review and install a Curt Class One, Inch and a Quarter Receiver Hitch: Part Number C11282. This is what the hitch looks like when it's installed in a Cruze. Take a first look at it, and you can see that we really can't see much of a hitch at all. We'll go underneath the vehicle a little bit more to go ahead and see the details. This is our inch and a quarter opening, right here. It has a nice reinforcement collar. We have a safety chain tow loop on the bottom here, which will work with a variety of safety chain hooks. Our hitch uses a half-inch hitch pin, which does come with the hitch pin and clip. The crossbar of the hitch is above a receiver right here.

It's completely hidden from view, from outside. This eventually goes up into the frame and uses existing holes, with no drilling required, and it comes with all the hardware necessary to install. This has a tongue weight, which is a weight that pulls down on the hitch, of two-hundred pounds, and a pull weight of two-thousand pounds. Always double-check your owner's manual to make sure your vehicle can carry these kinds of weights. Next we'll go ahead and give you a couple of measurements to help you out in selecting some accessories, such as a bicycle rack or a cargo carrier. From the top of the receiver opening down to the ground will be about eleven and a quarter inches. From the center of the hitch pin hole to the edge of your bumper will be about six and a half inches. Next we'll go ahead and show you how we installed it.

To install a hitch we need to get our vehicle ready. On the Chevrolet Cruze it's actually a pretty easy setup. All we've got to do is find our mounting locations on the frame, which will be this hole here and this hole here. This is the hardware we're going to install on the frame of the vehicle. We just got done looking at the passenger side; everything's going to apply, the same thing over on the driver side. Our hardware is going to be the same in all four locations.

It's going to be this carriageable 00:01:56 and this block, and our bolt leader here. This will help us install it into your frame. Let's go ahead and install our hardware. We'll install it in this location first. Take your bolt leader, run it though the hole we're going to use, and out to this larger hole towards the back. If you need to, you can bend the wire to help guide it. Next we'll take our block here, and we'll thread it onto the bolt leader and just push it up into the frame.

Then we'll take our bolt and that will thread onto the bolt leader, and we'll push this hole assembly up into the frame. Then we'll pull it out of the hole we're going to use. Next we're going to take off our bolt leader. We're going to repeat the same process for this hole here. Now we're going to take a look at the driver side. On our driver side here, we've got our exhaust. Some models also have a heat shield that covers up the frame, right here; fortunately for us, we don't have to deal with that. If we did have a heat shield in the way, we just have to trim it just to get access to our holes. We'll go ahead and install the hardware, just like we did on the passenger side. If you need to, you can go ahead and lower the exhaust by unbolting the hanger bracket; but I've found there's plenty of room right here to work with. Now I can go ahead and put our hitch into place. We're going to go ahead and take the driver side of the hitch. I'm going to place it on the exhaust, slide it up over the top, and then raise the passenger side up. If you can, slide the hitch forward to pinch the bolt so it doesn't move, then we can install the flange nuts. We'll just loosely install them, then we'll go back to the other side. We'll go ahead and lift up off our exhaust and onto our hardware, and install the flange nuts. Again, we're keeping everything loose for now. Next we'll go ahead and take your hitch and move it left to right, while still loose, and center it up to the rear of the vehicle. Once we have it centered up the way we want it, then we'll go ahead and tighten down the bolts. To tighten down our hardware, we'll be using an eleven-sixteenth socket. After our bolts are tightened down we'll go ahead and use a torque wrench, and torque the bolts down as specified in the instructions. All right. With our bolts torqued down, that will finish it for our install. And with that, that will finish it for the Curt Class One, Inch and a Quarter Receiver Hitch: Part Number C11282, on this 2015 Chevrolet Cruze.