Draw-Tite Max-Frame Trailer Hitch Receiver - Custom Fit - Class III - 2"

Video Transcript for Draw-Tite Max-Frame Trailer Hitch Installation - 2020 Buick Envision

Ryan: Hey everybody, Ryan here at etrailer. Today on our 2020 Buick Envision, we're going to be taking a look at and showing you how to install the Draw-Tite trailer hitch receiver.So what I found about this hitch is that it is going to be a little bit more visible than others out there, but there is an advantage of that. And this one is actually going to stick out a little bit further, so it's going to be closer to the edge of our bumper. And so this one will probably work a little bit better with folding type accessories. Since folding accessories need a little bit more room, that way you don't have to worry about them hitting the back of your bumper. But what I found is with many of our Envision customers, that's exactly what they plan on using the hitch for, folding bike racks, cargo carriers, things of that nature.So this is a class III hitch, so it's going to have that two inch by two inch receiver tube opening.

And that's going to give us a ton of different options, as far as what type of accessories we can use. It's a really common size. It's going to have a reinforced collar for extra strength. It's going to use the standard five-eighths size pin and clip. Now the pin and clip does not come included, but if you need one you can find it here at etrailer.There's also going to be a smaller hole in front of our pinhole, and that's actually going to allow us to use a J-Pin.

And that J-Pin is a stabilization device to help eliminate any rattle or play in the connection point here when we have something plugged into our receiver tube. The safety chain openings are going to be loop style. They're going to be big enough and set a little bit further back away from our pin and clip, so you shouldn't have to worry about any interference if you do plan on using them to tow a trailer.And if you are looking to do some towing, I would recommend picking up some trailer wiring, that way the lights on your trailer will match up with the lights on the back of your Buick and you'll be safe and legal.The trailer hitch is going to have some really impressive weight capacities. The maximum gross tongue weight rating is going to be 675 pounds, and that's going to be the amount of weight pushing down on the hitch. That's a pretty high number, so you should have no problem using whatever size bike rack or cargo carrier that you would want to.As far as the maximum gross trailer weight rating goes, it's going to be 4,500 pounds, so that's going to be the amount of weight that's pulling on the hitch.

So it's the weight of your trailer plus anything that you might have on it. And I do always like to point out, it's never a bad idea to check with your Buick's owner's manual to make sure your car can pull that much weight.Now I'm going to give you a couple of measurements and you're going to use these to help figure out which hitch mounted accessories to get. From the ground to the top inside edge of the receiver tube opening, it's going to be about 13 inches, so chances are pretty good you're going to need to get a ball mount with a rise. From the center of the hitch pinhole to the edge of our rear bumper, it's going to be about six inches. So you're going to use that measurement to help figure out that if any folding accessories you might have can be stored in the upright position without contacting the bumper.So at the end of the day, it's going to be a really versatile hitch that's going to allow us to do a little bit of everything.

As far as the installation goes, believe it or not, it's really not all that bad. Shouldn't take you a whole lot of time. Really shouldn't have any issues getting it done at home in your garage, or even in the driveway. Speaking of which, let's go ahead and put it on together now.To begin our installation, we're going to be underneath the back of our Buick and we're going to have two fasteners along this bottom edge of our bumper that we're going to have to take out to allow it to flex and give us some room to work. So we're going to be removing this one. We'll use a T15 Torx bit to pull it out. And if we move along the bottom edge, we're also going to have one over here.Now since the hitch is going to sit in between this gap here behind our bumper, this bracket can interfere a little bit and make it tricky to get our hitch up in place in this position. So what I'm going to do is just grab it, almost bend them more forward or towards the back of our vehicle. Kind of like this, in this position.So if you look right here where our bumper beam connects to the body of our vehicle, there's going to be a 15 millimeter nut. And what we're going to do is go ahead and pull that off. Now be careful not to lose this nut because we will be reusing it to secure our hitch.Now we can get our hardware installed into our frame rail and the attachment point we're going to be using will be this hole right here. So what you're going to do is take your fish wire, we're going to take the coiled end of the fish wire and put it through that hole and get it to come out through this larger hole. So what I like to do since they're so close is kind of bend that fish wire about like that. Run it through, drop it out, and straighten that fish wire back out a little bit. What we're going to do is take a spacer block, put that over the fish wire and the carriage bolt. And the carriage bolt is actually going to thread onto the fish wire. Then we can work our hardware up inside of the frame rail. I like to do it one at a time. Pull on our fish wire and get our carriage bolt to drop down through that hole there.So grab our hitch. You're going to drop your pull wire into the corresponding hole. Raise it up into position. And this part of the hitch is actually going to fit over that stud. Get that on both sides. And drop our bolt through. What we're going to do is grab that factory nut. We'll get that started on each side, hand tight. That way the hitch will support itself.Unthread our fish wire. And then we can get our hardware in place. So we're going to take a conical tooth washer. One side of it will have teeth. You're going to want those teeth to face up towards the hitch. We'll put that over the bolt. And what I like to do to prevent that bolt from getting pushed back up to the frame rail is just hold the washer, push it to one side, and that'll help keep it steady. That way we can get our hexagon started.Now with all of our hardware in place and in tight, we can snug it all down. You can find all the torque specifications in your instructions and that's the amount you want to torque them to.Now what we can do is take these little brackets that we bent, kind of bend them back down into the proper position and reinstall our Torx bit screws.And that'll finish up our look at and our installation of the Draw-Tite trailer hitch receiver on our 2020 Buick Envision.