Draw-Tite Trailer Hitch Receiver - Custom Fit - Class II - 1-1/4"

Video Transcript for Draw-Tite Trailer Hitch Installation - 2022 Mazda CX-5

Hey everybody. Ryan here at etrailer. Today on our 2022 Mazda CX-5, we're gonna be showing you how to install the draw-tite class 2 trailer hitch receiver. But before we do that, Why don't have to check it out and make sure such will work for you. So with this hitch having the smaller inch a quarter by inching a quarter opening, this will be a good choice for the those of you that are primarily plan on only using smaller bike racks and things like that especially if you already have a bike rack with this saris hitch that inch and quarter by inch and a quarter shank and you don't feel like having to pick up a new bike rack. You already like it and everything else.

For those of you that are gonna be planning on using accessories but don't have 'em yet or planning on doing any type of towing in the future, I would suggest getting the class three hitch that has the larger two inch by two inch opening. They're a little more versatile. There's a bunch of different options that we carry here at etrailer. So feel free to check those videos out if that's something that interests you, but like I said, nothing at all wrong with the hitch. Just having the larger one to me, a little more versatile but just depends on your situation, right If you already have that bike rack and that's really all you plan on doing with it, perfect option.

And honestly being a little bit smaller in size too, it's a little less noticeable. For the most part, it's gonna be completely hidden. And really the only thing you're gonna be able to see here is the receiver tube opening. The end of the hitch here it is gonna have a reinforced collar for a little bit of extra support. And it's going to use that half inch size pen and clip.

Keep in mind though pen and clip don't come included. If you need one, not really a big deal. You can grab it right here at etrailer. The safety chain openings are actually pretty good size and will allow us to use just about any size hook that we might have. And one thing that I do think is important since a lot of people are probably gonna be using this for bike racks is the clearance.

It's gonna give us in regards to our bumper. So end of the receiver tube is gonna be almost flush. I mean, just sitting behind the bumper a little bit. And what that should allow you to do is take your bike rack, fold it in that upright position. Not have to worry about it hitting the back of your Mazda. As far as hitch's weight capacities go, it's gonna have a 350 pound maximum gross ton weight rating and that's gonna be the amount of weight that's pushing down on the hitch. So that's good for those one to three maybe even four bike racks. I was kinda give you an example. As far as the maximum gross trailer weight rating goes that's gonna be 3500 pounds and that's gonna be the amount of weight that is pulling on the hitch. So whatever trailer plus anything you might have on it. And I do always like to suggest it's never a bad idea just to grab your Mazda's owner's manual. That way you can make sure your CX-5 can pull out much weight safely. So now I'll give you a couple of measurements and you can use these to help figure out which hitch mounted accessories will work best. From the ground to the top inside edge of the receiver tube opening that's gonna be about 13 inches. So if you do plan on pulling a small trailer around or something like that, chances are pretty good. You're gonna need to get a ball mount that has a rise and shank. From the center of the hitch pin hole to the edge of the rear bumper that's gonna be about three inches and you can use that measurement to figure out exactly if any of those towing accessories you might have can be stored in an upright position without hitting your back bumper. But other than that, at the end of the day, if you're looking for a hitch that has that smaller opening, definitely the way to go it'll function for you and look pretty good as well. As far as the installation goes, really not too bad. I did run across a couple of small hiccups but stuff that's definitely manageable. I'll show you how I kinda overcame that. And so hopefully if it happens to you, hopefully it'll be able to help you out along the way. But speaking of installation, if you'd like to see how that's done, feel free to follow along. We'll go ahead and put the hitch on together now. To begin our installation, we're gonna be here underneath the back of our Mazda. And what we're gonna need to do is lower the exhaust down some. Give us some room to work. So prior to doing that. I like to take a strap And just run it from side to side. That way we can kind of control how fast and how far we let our exhaust come down. So to get the exhaust down, we're gonna have a total of four rubber isolator hangers. So two on each side. One there. One there. Obviously the other side of her vehicles can be set up the exact same way, but to get these off, you can spray 'em now some lubricant, soapy water or whatever you got and we're gonna take a pry bar. We need to pry one end of the hanger off. Usually it really doesn't matter what end you go with General one is easier. So I'll just continue to kinda work this off here. And usually once you get one of them off the other ones get easier. Everything loosens off and whatnot Kinda swing this up and out of the way You do the same thing for other remaining hangers. So once you have all the hangers removed, you go ahead and loosen up the strap and let the exhaust come down a little ways. Now we can do, if you look at the bottom of your frame rail, in our case you have this foam coke sealer type stuff, and it's layered up on here pretty thick. I'm afraid it's gonna affect how my hitch is gonna sit. I've had them in the past where it's super thin and it's not really a big deal, but if yours is all caked up like this, probably a good idea to scrape it clean. So I'm just gonna take a razor you can use a scraper whatever you got. I'm just kinda work that bottom edge off. That way that hitch will set up there flat and flush. We won't have to worry about any fitment issues here. About something like that had to do the trick and I wanna mention from this point on anything we do to one side of our vehicle, we're also gonna do to the other side 'cause it'll be set up the same way. So now we can get our hardware in place. We're gonna have two attachment points. On each frame rail we're gonna be using this hole. So this one actually double as an access hole as well. We're gonna start with this one. You're gonna take the coil in of your whole wire, put through there and we're trying to accomplish is to get the other end of that wire drop out of our hole, our access hole there. I'll take it the spacer block, slide the spacer block over it. Then we're gonna take a carriage bolt And thread that carriage bolt onto the fish wire. You can feed the hardware up into the frame. Just pulled out until we get the bolt to drop out like so And then for the other attachment point we're gonna use a little bit different of a method. We're just gonna take a spacer block, put that over the quarter end of your fish wire. Take another carriage bolt. Thread that on. Then you're just gonna feed the bolt end first Then the spacer block and then pull it back down through. Now if you move to the bottom edge of our fascia here we're gonna have this plastic piece. We need to remove it. And there should be a couple of fasteners under there as well. We could pull off and that way we can move our bumper out of the way a little bit. Give us some more room to get the hitch up there. So to get this off, you're gonna take flathead screwdriver and just pry underneath the head. The fastener that'll pull out. Same thing over here. And then to get this off there's a little clip in this hole. You can kind of just take your screwdriver and pry it. So it comes down. There's kind of a better look. That was putting pressure on it like that. Same deal. We'll just set this out of the way for now. And it looks like we'll have two fasteners. So this one here, Same difference. This stuff Pry out the head, pull out the fastener and I'll do it over here as well. And that will let us kind of move this around and have a little more flexibility there. Just wanna go over the hardware combination that we're gonna be using to actually secure the hitch. So once we get it up, obviously the hitch is gonna sit up here and these bolts are gonna come through the holes in the hitch. And once you have it up there, you can remove the whole wire and then secure the hitch using a conical tooth washer And a hex nut. When you put these conical tooth washers on you wanna make sure that they up towards the hitch. So we'll hold that up and then thread on the nut. It's now with the next set of hands. We can take our hitch and get it into position. So you're gonna wanna feed the whole wire through the appropriate holes in the hitch. You're gonna go up and over your exhaust and might have to kinda pull back on your fascia. Just kinda sneak it in there. If you wanna munch in make sure you have the exhaust hanger installed on the side 'cause once the hitch is up you can't really get to it. So make sure you have that like that. Just gonna take a little bit of finesse to kinda work everything in. Actually it looks like our hitch is just barely hitting that metal portion. So if that happens to you what we can do is maybe get a pry bar or something in here and just barely bend that out of the way. We have to come across that issue but I'm assuming it does happen from time to time. So that's when I'm gonna do real quick. Just kind of letting the hitch hang a little bit and I'm gonna take a pry bar kind go in between the hitch and that exhaust hanger and hopefully just move it over. Just ever so slightly and it would barely, barely touch it. So I Should do it with it did put it in So hanger is set. Not a big deal. Once we have everything in place here. Go ahead remove our wire Take our hardware and we'll get it started hand tight. And a trick with these too. If you get the washer up there, you can kind of apply some side pressure that'll keep the bolt steady. Make it a little bit easier to get the nuts started. Once you have the hardware in place and hand tight you come back with a three quarter inch or 19 millimeter socket. Snug everything down. This one here, you don't have a ton of room so if you're trying to get a power tool in here like I am, you might need a swivel there. I'll go ahead and slug these up. Once everything's snug we need to make sure to come back with torque wrench and torque down all of the hardware to the amount specified in the instructions. If you don't have a torque wrench, grab one here at etrailer, or a lot of times you go to your local auto parts store and they'll have one they're available. You can rent. Once we have our hitch torque down we can rehang our exhaust. So with these you want to re-lubricate 'em again. Makes a little lot easier and we're just gonna do this by hand now. Lift it up and slide the hangers back into place. So once the exhaust is supporting itself again, we'll go ahead and get our strap removed. So now we come back to our fascia here. This piece, obviously isn't gonna fit. Not really a big deal. We'll just set that side. We are gonna be putting these fasteners back into those attachment points and that'll finish off our look at and our installation of the draw-tite class two trailer hitch receiver on our 2022 Mazda CX-5..