etrailer Trailer Hitch Receiver - Custom Fit - Matte Black Finish - Class III - 2"

Video Transcript for etrailer Class III Trailer Hitch Installation - 2014 Cadillac SRX

Hey everybody, Ryan here at etrailer. Today on our 2014 Cadillac SRX, we're gonna be showing you how to install the etrailer.com Class Three Trailer Hitch Receiver. But before we get into that, why don't we just take a minute, check this out and make sure it's gonna be the best hitch for you. The Cadillac is a really capable SUV and you can use it to do a lot of different things whether you're gonna be pulling trailers around or using accessories. So if it we're me I'd want a hitch check that would be able to handle all those things and this one is gonna be up to the task and allow you to accomplish all that. But something else that would stick out in my mind if I was looking for a hitch for the Cadillac would be, how's it gonna look.

And I think outta a lot of hitches, this is gonna be the best one appearance-wise. All of the hitches, regardless which one you get you're not gonna be able to reinstall the removable panel as it is. Some people cut a notch out there and you're able to get it back up and it looks a little bit better. But if you don't want to bother with that and you leave it off this is definitely gonna blend in the most. And even if you do trim it and put this back up it's still gonna blend in better than the others because it has this matte black finish and almost matches up perfectly even texture wise with the plastic on our bumper.

Hitch is gonna have a two inch by two inch opening, which is good. A lot of different things work with it. It's gonna use that standard five eights pin and clip. Pin and clip doesn't come included with the hitch, but if you need one, not a big deal, grab it here at etrailer and the safety chain openings are gonna be a loop style and provide us with enough space, usually just about any size hook that our trailer might have on it. As far as hitch is weight capacities, this one is gonna give us some pretty high numbers.

Maximum gross tongue weight rating's gonna be 500 pounds and that's the amount of weight pushing down on the hitch so that's good for pretty much any size bike rack or cargo carrier that you'd wanna use for example. As far as the maximum gross trailer weight rating goes that's gonna be 5,000 pounds. That's the amount of weight pulling on the hitch so the weight of your trailer plus anything you might have entered on it. This can be used at the weight distribution system which is a separate component. What happens whenever you use that it's gonna keep your Cadillac and your trailer level whenever you're towing down the road and that's really popular to use with the bigger campers and things like that.

So check that out if you're interested. But if you use the system the capacities are gonna increase. Maximum tongue weight will go up to 600 and max trailer weight will go up to 6,000. With all that said, I do always like to recommend never a bad idea just to grab your SRX owner's manual. That way we can check in there and make sure your vehicle can handle that much weight safely. I'm gonna give you a couple of measurements and you can use these to help figure out what type of accessories will work best. From the ground to the top inside edge of the receiver tube opening, that's gonna be about 19 inches. So if you plan on pulling a trailer chances are pretty good you can use a ball mount that has a drop, probably that two to four inch range will work for the majority of people. From the center of the hitch pin hole to the edge of the rear bumper, that's gonna be about three and a half inches, which is good clearance but you can use that to help figure out exactly if any folding type accessories you might have can be stored in that upright position without contacting the back bumper. Other than that though, at the end of the day if I was gonna put a hitch on my Cadillac, this would be the one. It has some high weight capacities, I feel like it looks the best and it's made right here in the USA so can't really ask for too much more. As far as the installation goes, believe it or not it's not too bad. Essentially you take this little panel off, loosen up a couple fasteners, put the hitch up and bolt it in. So shouldn't run any too many issues but like to see how it's done, feel free to hang around, we'll go ahead and put it on together now. To you begin our installation, we're gonna be here at the back of our Cadillac and first thing that we need to do is remove some fasteners along the bottom edge as well as this little access panel here. We'll start with our access panel. So you're gonna have a Phillips head screw on each side of it (ratchet running) and then you should be able to just kind of pull down on this and set it to the side. On each side of her vehicle we're gonna have two fasteners and then a nut that we're gonna have to remove to get this plastic piece out. And I wanna mention from this point on, anything we do to one side of her vehicle, we're also gonna do to the other side cuz it'll be set up the same way. And so the way these work, you could take a trim tool or flathead screwdriver and pry underneath the head and then the base and that whole thing will pop out. So once you got them out you can remove this nut here. It's a 10 millimeter size socket, what we'll be using. (ratchet running) Lower this down and get it outta the way. Now, I'd like to go over our attachment points that we're gonna be using to secure the hitch. There's gonna be a total of six so they're just threaded well nuts. You'll have two on each frame rail and then we'll have two in the center. And what I suggest doing is cleaning all those out so you can spray in some penetrating oil and take a tube brush like this and work it back and forth just to get out any potential dirt or junk that might be caught inside. Let's go over the hardware that we're gonna use to secure the hitch and it'll be the same for all the attachment points. It's gonna have a bolt and conical teeth washer. Make sure the teeth on the washer are gonna face up towards the hitch, and then when we're holding the hitch up there these are simply just gonna thread right into the attachment points. So now with the help of Joe here we can get our hitch up into position. So you'll have to kind of pull back on the fascia a little bit to get this slid into place. And then once we're holding it up we want to get at least one bolt started on each side hand tight that way the hitch will support itself. But this time I'll just take the washer off just cuz it's hitting the fascia and I'm trying to hold this up. So once we get it a little more supported I'll come back and put a washer back on. Now, all we have to do is take the rest of our hardware here, we'll get all of them started hand tight. With it all in place, now we can grab a three quarter inch socket and snug everything. (ratchet running) Now you wanna make sure and come back with a torque wrench and tighten down all the hardware to the amount specified in the instructions. We'll go ahead and reinstall our support brackets here and we'll do that the opposite way that we removed them. As far as the panel's concerned, you can either leave it off because it's not gonna fit with the hitch in place or what some people do is they kinda line it up and trim out a small opening here. That way it'll cover up the majority of it. So that's what you could do as well if you want to. We're gonna leave ours off. But with that said, that'll finish up our look at and our installation of the etrailer.com Trailer Hitch Receiver on our 2014 Cadillac SRX.