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

Video Transcript for Curt Trailer Hitch Installation - 2019 Buick Cascada

Hey everybody, it's Rob here at etrailer.com. And today we'll be taking a look at the CURT class one custom fit trailer hitch receiver on our 2019 Buick Cascada. Now I know everybody wants to see what it looks like, so we are going to go over some of the features and check it out. If you stick around at the end of the video, we are going to show you how to get it installed so you can have the confidence to do it at home. But here's what our hitch is going to look like once we do have installed. I think it has a really clean look, mainly because that cross tube is going to be hidden behind the bumper, and the only thing we're going to see is the receiver tube sticking out right here at the bottom.

Now, the other nice thing is, is you can tell that it sits a little bit underneath the bumper, not so much where it's going to be a hassle to use it, but it does give us clearance. When we're walking behind, we're not going to have to worry about hitting our leg on it.Now this is a class one hitch, so it's going to give us an inch and a quarter by inch and a quarter receiver tube opening. And this will be great for bike racks, cargo carriers, or if you got to pull a small utility trailer or do some light duty towing, but regardless of what exactly you're going to be using your hitch for, all the accessories are going to mount through the hitch pin hole here on the side. Now the hitch is going to accept a standard half inch pin and clip. That's going to secure all of your hitch-mounted accessories.

Just keep in mind that the pin and clip do not come with it, but you can find it here at etrailer.com. Along with the locking devices so you keep those accessories secure and anti-rattle devices so you don't have to listen to that rattling noise coming from the receiver tube.Now, if you do plan on doing some towing, maybe you get a small utility trailer, maybe just taking that jet ski down to the lake. A few things to keep in mind is one, that our hitch does have a specific drawbar or ball mount that is made for the hitch. Now, again, those are going to be sold separately, but you can find them here at etrailer.com. The other thing you need to keep in mind is you've got to hook up your safety chains.

Anytime you're pulling the trailer, it is going to be a requirement that you have safety chains or cables. And our connection point is going to be this loop style welded to the bottom. Now, it's pretty open, we're just going to have this rolled steel stock, big opening on there, so even if you have what I consider most normal sized hook, plenty of room to get them hooked on, take them off. Don't have to worry about interference from the pin and clip or even any kind of damage to the bottom because it's not anywhere near the bottom of our car.Now, if you happen to have those really large oversized hooks, we're still easily going to be able to get them hooked on, and again, not have to worry about any kind of interference or getting too close to the bottom of our Buick. Now, obviously, if you're looking for a hitch, you have something in mind you want to do.

Now, whether that's you want to take some bikes with you down to the park, ride a few bikes, or if you're going on a road trip, you just need more room inside your Buick, you could put a cargo carrier back here, but that's where weight capacity is going to be a really important thing. You want to make sure that the hitch is up to the task that you put it to.So as far as the tongue weight goes, our hitch is going to have a 200 pound rating. That's how much force is going at the end of the receiver tube. So to put that in perspective, we'll be able to carry a couple of bikes with us, no problem. Or if we have a smaller cargo carrier, we can put a decent amount of gear on there, but you do want to realize you want to go with the lowest rating out of all the accessories, the hitch and your vehicle. Now, as far as the gross trailer weight rating goes, it's going to have a 2000 pound rating. That's how much the hitch can pull, but that does include the trailer and everything we have loaded on it. So with those numbers in mind, I do always urge everyone to double-check your Buick's owner's manual, because those are the ratings for the hitch, and we don't want to exceed the manufacturer's rating for our car.Now I'd like to give you a few measurements and these are going to help you whenever you're looking for accessories for your new hitch. From the center of the hitch pin hole to the outermost edge of our bumper is going to be right about six and a half inches. And that measurement is going to help you when you're looking at folding accessories to make sure you have enough room to fold them up and put them in the upright storage position and not make contact with the rear bumper. Now, another important measurement is going to be from the ground to the inside top edge of the receiver tube opening, and our hitch is coming in right about 12 inches. Now our Buick does sit rather low to the ground, so I always recommend a bike rack or a cargo carrier that has a raised shank, that way we can get a little bit more ground clearance out of it.But now that we have seen with the hitch looks like, gone over some of the features, let's go in and go through the process of getting it installed together. To begin our installation, we want to come to the back of our Cascada, and we're going to move to the frame rail. Now it's probably going to be easier to look at the passenger side here, because the exhaust isn't in the way, but we're going to have the same mounting locations on both sides, so I'm going to go ahead and point those out while we're here. We're going to have a hole at the very back of the frame rail, really close to the bumper. That'll be one mounting location. And if we move forward towards the front, we're going to skip one, and then this will be our secondary mounting location.And again, they're going to be exactly the same on both sides. And we're going to have a larger hole in front of that, and that's going to be our access hole to get all of our hardware in place. So we get the hardware in the frame rail, we want to grab one of our pull wires, a little coiled end on it, and I'm going to take the coiled end, then I'm going to feed it into the hole that's the furthest back towards the bumper. And we're going to start feeding it towards that large access hole. Now you may need to bend it a little bit possibly to reach into the frame rail, but the goal is to get the tail end to stick out and the coiled end. I always put a little bend on the tail, just so it doesn't get sucked into the frame, kind of help it stay outside.We'll grab a square hole spacer block, slide it over the coiled end of the wire, grab a carriage bolt. We're going to thread that onto the end of the wire. Push the block in, we'll push the bolts in, pull on the wire so it drops all the way down. Now I like leaving the pull wires attached, just kind of helps prevent the bolt from getting pushed back in, and even if it does, we can just pull it back down to the frame. Now we're going to go and repeat that process for our other mounting hole over here and the two on the other side of the frame.Now the next thing, as we're going to lift our hitch up, I suggest getting the driver's side kind of started first. Make sure you put your pull wires down through, lift up over the exhaust, then we can bring our passenger side and drop those pull wires down through the hips, lift it up where the bolts come down through lined up in the frame. We're going to want to remove at least one of the pull wires. Where going to grab one of the flange nuts out of our kit, you want to get at least one started on each side, that way the hitch will hold itself up and we can work on getting the rest of the hardware in place. Each one of the bolts coming down through is going to get a flange nut. We just need to go back through and put all those in place.When you have all the nuts loosely in place, you want to grab a 11/16 socket, we're going to come back and snug them up. You do want to make sure you come back with a torque wrench and torque all the hardware down to the specified amount in the instructions. We're going to go back and repeat that for all of our remaining hardware. Once you have that last bolt torqued down, that'll finish up your install and your look at the CURT class one custom fit trailer hitch receiver on our 2019 Buick Cascada..