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

Video Transcript for Draw-Tite Max-Frame Trailer Hitch Installation - 2020 Mitsubishi Outlander Sport

Hey everybody, Ryan here at etrailer. Today, we have a 2020 Mitsubishi Outlander Sport and we're gonna be showing you how to install the Draw-Tite Class III, two-inch trailer hitch receiver. But before we do that, why don't we check it out and make sure that this is the right hitch for you. So my first impression of the hitch; even though it is for the most part, completely visible, I don't think it looks too bad. It does do a decent job of kind of blending in. And I do think it's gonna work out well regardless on what you plan on doing with it.

Whether it be towing, using it for accessories or even a little bit of both. So a lot of our Outlander Sport customers do you use their Mitsubishis to carry around hitch mounted accessories. Things like a bike rack or a cargo carrier. And with that said, I think the hitch will work out real well for that. Really due to the fact that it gives us good clearance.

Not only ground clearance, because it does sit up nice and tight against the bottom of our bumper, but more importantly, that bumper clearance itself. The end of the receiver tube opening, it's gonna be pretty much flush with our back bumper. That way if you have any of those accessories that fold up you're gonna be able to do that and not have to worry about them contacting the back of your Mitsubishi. So with this hitch being a Class III it's gonna give us that two-inch by two-inch receiver tube opening. Super common size and a ton of different accessories.

We'll work with it. It's gonna have a reinforced collar for symmetric strength there at the end. And it's gonna have that standard 5/8 pin hole. Keep in mind a pin and clip does not come included, but if you need one you can grab it right here at etrailer. If we look in front of the pin hole there's also gonna be a smaller hole and that's there to allow us to use a J-pin which is a stabilization device.

And if you use that, what it's gonna do is eliminate any slopper play here in the connection point; whenever you have your accessory plugged into the hitch. One of the things that does kind of set this one apart from some of the others is these safety chain openings. They're a plate style and they're very big and super easy to get to. So you're gonna be able to use just about any size hook that you might have, without running into any issues. This hitch is gonna give us some pretty impressive weight capacities. As far as the maximum gross tongue weight rating goes. That's gonna be 675 pounds. That's gonna be the amount of weight that's pushing down on the hitch. That's a pretty high number and you should be able to use pretty much any size bike rack or cargo carrier that you would want to, for example. As far as the maximum gross trailer weight rating goes, that's gonna be 4,500 pounds. And that's gonna be the amount of weight that's pulling on the hitch. So there's the weight of the trailer plus anything that you might have on it. And I always like to suggest, never a bad idea to grab your Mitsubishi's owner's manual. That way you can make sure your Outlander Sport can pull that much weight safely. And if you are towing a trailer, you are gonna want the lights to work. And in order to achieve that, you can pick up some trailer wiring and saw it on your Mitsubishi, and everything will work and keep you safe and legal. Let's go ahead and take a couple of measurements. And if we go from the ground to the top inside edge of the receiver tube opening, that's gonna be right at about 13 1/2 inches. So if you are towing, chances are pretty good you're gonna need to get a ball mount with a rise. You go from the center of the hitch pin hole to the edge of our rear bumper. That's gonna be right at two inches. And we kind of talked about this earlier, but you can use that measurement to figure out exactly if those folding accessories can indeed be stored in an upright position, without contacting your bumper. So at the end of the day, a hitch, you really can't go wrong with. It's gonna get the job done. And as far as the installation goes really not too bad, believe it or not. You do have to remove a tow hook on the passenger side. And then after that, more or less, you just lift the hitch up and get it bolted in place. So really shouldn't give you a whole lot of issues or take up a lot of your time. Speaking of which, let's go ahead and pull into the shop and put it on together now. To begin our installation, we're gonna be working here underneath the back of our Outlander. And the first thing that we need to do is remove this factory tow hook here on the passenger side frame rail. So if you look at our bracket here, it's gonna be held in place by two bolts on there and one there. So we need to pull those out using a 14 millimeter socket. Lower this down and set it off to the side as we will not be reinstalling it. Now with that bracket out of the way we can kind of go over our attachment points and the hardware that we're gonna use to secure our hitch. We're gonna be using the two holes here in the frame, that we're originally used to hold that tow hook up. And what you're gonna do is take these two large carriage bolts and the spacer block. And when we put this in and get everything tight you wanna make sure that the square portion of the carriage bolt actually goes into the square hole in the spacer blocks. So it sits flush. With that said, you're simply just going to push those through like that and then just push 'em back until they're flush. That way they're not in a way when we go to put our hitch up. We're also gonna have one more attachment point. That's gonna be that threaded weld nut and the frame right here. And what you wanna do is spray it down with some penetrating oil and clean up the threads. I'm just gonna use a toothbrush. That way there's no debris or anything in there. And once the hitch is up, you can take the other bolt and again, a conical toothed washer, and pay attention to the conical toothed washers. Two of 'em will have a little bit smaller center holes. And those are the ones that you wanna use for these bolts. So you want the teeth on the washer to face up towards the hitch. So when we're holding it up this will simply just thread into place. And I wanna mention from this point on, anything we do to the side of the vehicle we're also gonna do on the other side, because it will be set up the exact same way. Now with an extra set of hands you can lift our hitch into position. You wanna start on the driver's side first, angle it up. Then we're able to kind of swing passenger side in. Once you have it lined up what I like to do is just kind of push our carriage bolts through the hitch. With those being pushed through the hitch will kind of support itself. Let me work on the rest of the hardware. Slip it through there, holding it up. I'm gonna go ahead and just get this bolt started as well. Now where the large carriage bolts come through the other side of our hitch we can get the hardware on those. Again, conical toothed washer, make sure your teeth face towards the hitch, put that over the bolt. And let's take a hex nut, get that started. Gonna have the same setup on those as well. Now that we have all of our hardware in place and hand tight, we can snug it all down. For this bolt, I'm gonna use a 17 millimeter socket. And then for our large carriage bolts and nuts here on the side of our frame rail, I'll use a 3/4 inch socket. Now that everything's tight, you need to make sure and come back with a torque wrench and torque all the hardware down to the amount specified in our instructions. That'll finish up our look at and our installation of the Draw-Tite Class III two-inch trailer hitch receiver on our 2020 Mitsubishi Outlander Sport..