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The Curt E16 5th Wheel Trailer Hitch gives you a solid foundation for towing big campers or toy haulers. It’s rated for 16,000 lbs gross towing weight and a 4,000 lbs vertical load limit, so it’s built to handle demanding loads with ease. The all-steel construction with a carbide black finish adds the toughness you need to stay steady mile after mile and season after season.
Nothing’s more frustrating than lining up a hitch on uneven terrain. The dual-pivoting head on the E16 moves up to 10 degrees side to side, making it easier to connect even when the truck and trailer aren’t perfectly level. Once the king pin slides in, the head centers itself for a smoother connection and a more natural feel as you pull away.
Once you’ve backed into place, the auto-locking slide-bar jaw secures the king pin automatically. A rear steel tension bar works with the jaw to clamp down tightly around the pin, reducing movement and noise for a quieter ride. That firm hold means less chucking and more confidence when you’re towing heavy across rough stretches of road.
This hitch is designed to make setup simple and removal manageable. The 2-pin head removal lets one person lift it off without special tools, breaking down the weight into easier pieces when it’s time to clear the bed. With four height settings from 13" to 17", you can dial in the right trailer level for your setup. And since rails and an installation kit are included, getting everything bolted in and ready to tow is straightforward from the start.
The Permalube pivot bushings keep the head moving smoothly while cutting down on maintenance over time. Combined with the anti-rattle skid plate, they help deliver a quieter ride with less metal-on-metal contact. Add a nylon lube plate (sold separately), and your king pin glides right into place for clean, consistent hookups every trip.
Alternate Instructions
Videos are provided as a guide only. Refer to manufacturer installation instructions and specs for complete information.
Hey guys, Kevin at etrailer and today we're gonna be taking a look at the CURT E16 5th Wheel Hitch. Operating this hitch is super simple. While your handle is down, it's not gonna be able to come out so it's locked in place so you know that your hitch isn't gonna be able to uncouple from your king pin. If you lift your handle up, you can kind of feel as you're lifting it up, it kind of pops up out of here so that you can actually uncouple. You can pull that slide jaw out, lock it in place and then you can also recouple up. So as you're pulling up to your trailer it is gonna tilt down.
You can come back up, it'll pop right in and automatically lock into place and then you can turn that handle back down to keep your jaw from being able to unlock. Now I do wanna say this is the basic starter run of the mill kind of model. It is a slide bar jaw, and typically when you have that you will experience quite a bit of noise quite a bit of movement, some chucking. You're not gonna have all of the added comfort that you will with some of the upgraded fifth wheel hitches. So if you look a little bit closer you can see exactly what I'm talking about.
So this one bar just goes straight across. It does not conform to the round king pin that's sitting in here, so you can kind of see it can kind of move just a little bit. Whereas with your single jaw or your two piece jaws it kind of wraps around it. Prevents it from being able to move. Prevents any of that noise and just gives you overall a better ride quality.
This hitch head can pivot front to back, which is gonna help with coupling and uncoupling your trailer but there is no rubber dampeners in this. There's no air ride anything. There's nothing to really kind of help with any ride quality. So if you are looking for a more comfortable ride or maybe you have some issues with the ride you already currently have this probably wouldn't be the best option for you. I'd recommend going with something that has a little bit more of a built up head on it that has some of those rubber dampeners in it.
So what this hitch lacks in its ride quality it does make up for in its ability to easily come apart. It's not as large as some of those upgraded hitches. If you pull these two pins, you can easily remove the head which greatly reduces the weight of this hitch overall so that you can easily get it in and out of your truck without having to have a second set of hands with you. As you can see, it does sit within our base rails. It really does not come past the center of the base rails at all. So if you need to store extra stuff, maybe you have a bunch of firewood some coolers, maybe you have a shorter bed and you just need to have some extra space in there for all the other stuff. You can kind of plan exactly how much space you're gonna have because you know this sits right within the base rails. Now this does come with two prongs right here that have a hole in it that's gonna fit about a three ace inch size pin through it. And now what you can do with that is easily lock your bar into place so that nobody else can come up and uncouple your trailer from your hitch. As far as installation goes, this hitch is super simple to put together. It is only for bolts, four nuts and then six pins. And honestly, you could easily put this hitch together within 10 minutes all by yourself. You don't really even need a second set of hands for it like you might with some other hitches. But let's go ahead and show you how we did it. Start off our installation, we're gonna be putting on our handle. Now when we put our handle on we wanna make sure that when we slide that bolt through that we can't undo our jaw here. Now when I get that on just to show you guys, when I pull this out I should not be able to pull it out while it's facing down. So we know that that little inner bar right there is not in the correct position. So we're gonna wanna pull this off. Actually, we'll flip it up first, we'll drop our bolt out and then we'll pull it off and put our handle back down. Now when I put my bolt through I shouldn't be able to pull this out at all. As you can see the jaw is locked in place, not until I go up, can I open it up. I'm gonna go ahead and tighten that bolt now that we have it in the correct position. You're gonna want to use two 10 millimeter sockets or wrenches. Sockets just easier in my opinion, but from there we can go ahead and start adding on our legs to our cross member. And on our cross member I personally prefer to have the coupling instructions on the same side as our handle. So that's what we're gonna use as our left side if we we're looking at it from the tailgate. When we're looking at our legs, we wanna make sure that that orange line is facing out. You also notice that you'll have your manufacturer sticker that has a serial number and the item code for that specific hitch facing out. Now the next important decision is exactly how we're gonna place these legs. There are four different height positions with our cross member here. Now this is really gonna depend on the truck and your fifth wheel. What you're gonna need to do is while your truck is level you're gonna measure from the bed of your truck down to the ground, and then you're gonna measure from the skid plate that's on your fifth wheel. And that skid plate is the part above your king pin. So that flat surface, because that kingpin is gonna come and sit and lock in the jaws. So we want to get where that height is while your trailer's level and the difference between the two is gonna be where you need to set your hitch. Now, if you have base trails already installed in your truck I recommend going ahead and getting your legs set up in it. It's gonna kind of help keep it more stable. That way you don't have wobbling all over the place, you just have 'em sitting there. Then you can go ahead and drop on your cross member and we can take our bolts. Now, typically when you're putting it on bolts, you'd think that you'd slide that through, slide the washer on and then your nut. But in this case, CURT only has you slip your bolt through and then use that washer on the inside cause there's a little bit of a gap between the leg and then the weldment right here. And that basically just kind of eats up some of that space. So I'm gonna slip my washer in place and push my bolt through, and we'll put our nylon lock nut on the outside. And then we'll just repeat this for the rest of the three spots. There we go. Now that I have all those in place we're gonna go ahead and put on our lock nuts. Now there is not a torque setting on the instructions for this at all. It just says to get until it's tight. But you can also just look up the torque setting for that size bolt along with its thread size and torque it down to that just to be extra careful. There is a nylon lock nut on this, so it shouldn't come off but in my personal opinion, I always prefer to just go the extra mile for the safety of it. But we can go ahead and kind of run these down a bit with our wrenches. On the bullhead side we're gonna wanna use a 21 millimeter socket or wrench. And then on the nut itself you're gonna use a 22 millimeter. Now with our legs in place we can go ahead and drop on our hitch head. Simply it'll sit it in just like that and then we're gonna have two pin and clips that we're gonna stick right through, that's gonna secure it in place. Last thing to do is just slip your pin and clips into the feet to lock into place in your base rails and then you'll be all good to go. Well, now that we've gone over all of the specifics of this hitch, I think that about does it for our look today at the CURT E16 5th Wheel Hitch. My name's Kevin, thanks for watching..
Ratings & Reviews
Wonderful Product. Installed easily in only 2.5 hours! Love it! The product is Great, however the service at etrailer.com is AMAZING! Terrific experience, incredibly fast shipping and a really competitive price! If I need it, and etrailer.com sells it, I'll buy it from them!!!!
This hitch was very easy to put on. We use it to pull our camper several times last summer. We have not had any problems hooking or unhooking from the hitch. Looking forward to another season camping. Thanks etrailer
William B.
2/1/2021
Still working great. We used it alot last summer and plan on putting it to good use this summer.
It is just what I wanted, coming from the world of big trucks, I wanted a hitch that auto snaps closed, it does just that, it mounted right in my old Reese plate system on 22” center, so far I am very happy not only with the hitch, but also the price and the customer service from
E trailer, thanks for the support . Chris S.
Chris
5/17/2021
I still love it less work for me, you back in it locks your done, and unlock is easy pull the handle never sticks love it!!!
Nice looking hitch and well made, I just installed it but haven't towed with it yet. etrailer shipped fast but UPS damaged the carton and the bolt kit was lost in transit. Customer service at etrailer was very helpful in getting a replacement kit shipped now all is good. I would not hesitate to do business with them again.
Don D.
3/23/2018
I pull a 36 5th wheel with the hitch and no problems at all.
Product made it with no missing parts. etrailer "pallet wrapped" the 93 lb. 5th wheel hitch. Outer box still sustained damage, but maintained the inner box. etrailer succeeded where two other venders failed to deliver intact packages.
etrailer has a new, repeating customer.
James M.
7/11/2019
The hitch release handle is quite sticky. I have used silicone spray and last week applied some grease. Doesnt want to close all the way and needs to be coaxed into total closure.
Right on time I like that
Like how you notes time and team membe
Been to 45 stateside my 5th wheeler
Twice to Alaska 5,600 miles on the Alaska I ts self
Brooke M.
4/17/2025
We like being on time, too - it's what makes the world go round some even argue. Alaska is beautiful! I'd love to see a photo from your adventure if you feel up to sharing one :)
I am very pleased with my purchase from etrailer. I bought a fifth wheel hitch to haul my fifth wheel trailer and have had no problems with the installation or using it and have had it one year. I would recommend this purchase to anyone who needs a quality fifth wheel at an economy price.
Pat R. Madera, California
Pat R.
4/24/2018
YES, THE HITCH IS STILL 100 GREAT, THANK YOU
E-trailer made the order process very easy, and the shipping was much faster than I expected. The boxes arrived in fairly good condition, but the hitch arms were scratched up due to poor internal packaging. Since the hitch was packed in an E-Trailer box, I assume they repackaged this product.
Otherwise, the Curt hitch and custom rails seem to be very good products for the money!
Alvin S.
9/21/2021
The E16 hitch is adequate. I get a lot of clunking when starting and stopping due to the straight locking bar style hitch. I wish now that I would have spent more money and got a hitch that had locking jaws that clamped around the pin.
Very quality unit. Only had trouble with handle mounting as the tube was turned 180 degrees and I put handle on as instructions said and it was not lined up with grooves to pull hitch lock out. Took top back off and seen this so removed handle and put on in up position instead of down and was able to pull to line up grooves with slots and release hitch lock and lock it in down as it should be. Works real good and sets secure in rails and in hitch top. Real good fit with no rattles going down road when nothing is hitched.
Dan
8/28/2016
Real good, handles any camper and works smooth.
It works out good
Its a great product and with the rail kit it makes an awesome beast for towing. It has provided great service and satisfaction so far.
It’s a decent hitch but after using it for a year I would much rather have a different locking mechanism the single bar across the kingpin causes the trailer to slide forward and backwards upon accelerating and breaking, and can feel it clunk against the hitch, would much rather have a locking jaw and side to side tilt
Not too hard to install holes lined up. Had to make the hole in the frame toward the front larger. After measuring the rails perfect hole placement to installed the rails. Took about 4 hours total. Very good help from the customer service at etrailer to match up the item and also save me a few dollars.
The hitch worked great. Reason for the 2 stars is the package got delayed twice in transit and I had to reschedule the pickup of my fifth wheel. When I also received the package the main crossmember bar was bent at the mounting point. Luckily I was able to bend it back but UPS needs to get there act together.
I bought the curt fifth wheel and base to convert my B&W turnover ball and this thing fits perfectly it went together smoothly and in under an hour easily highly reccomend
Works fantastic,nice product
The hitch arrived very fast, and was boxed well. It doesn't come assembled in order to reduce the shipping size, but it's super easy to assemble. Just four 1/2" bolts attach the legs to the main crossmember, and one small 3/16" bolt attaches the lever release arm. In all, it only took about 15 minutes to assemble and set in the truck. It even comes with the hitch pins needed to install on your rails. The only thing you'll need that's not included is about 4 to 8, 1/2" washers. Very happy with the hitch, and always look to etrailer.com for my replacement hauling/trailer parts!
Great price and works really well with the camper im pulling with no issues what so ever even sits low enough to have my bed cover on without removing any parts of the hitch
After ordering rails for a fifth wheel that I had in an older truck, I was told the rails I ordered would work with my fifth wheel, however after installing the front rail, the fifth wheel would not work with the rails ordered. I ended up ordering a new fifth wheel plate. That was easier than removing the frame brackets I had already installed. It appears that there was a mis communication between the person I talked to with etrailer. Instead of a 1/2 day install it took a day and a half plus wait time for the fifth wheel to get to my address. However once installed it appears to be good.
Haven't had a chance to use the hitch yet but I got it installed without too much trouble. It took about 4 hours to install, the frame mounting brackets and rails, at a leisurely pace. The unit seems to be very sturdy and it is certainly built heavy. I'm looking forward to testing it out soon.
Well packed, free 5 days shipping, easy to assemble and nice looking hitch. Im extra amazed because i can remove the king pin base/head from the bridge leg assembly to easily transport them. Still not tested with the coach. Practically no lateral movement and have the suspicion bushings. Very firm and easy mechanisms. Do not leave the gate open for long term because could damage the main spring. I plan to pull a 11k 334FWFLS. Nothing compared to this hitch in this price range. I will add some extra feedback after couple travels.
Julio
11/12/2018
More than 1000 miles pulling a 38 fifth wheel and still like new
Bought this to be easier to take out or put in truck. It wasn’t long until the little catch that holds it open was worn down and no longer held it open to connect or disconnect trailer. Next it came to where I was having to hit the handle with a ball peen hammer to disconnect from trailer or to open to connect and have my wife hold it open while I back under camper. I took this one to scrap yard and bought a different brand.
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Sean O.
3/5/2018
I am so pleased with the Hitch and the kit, they have been trouble-free and the price and quality cant be beat. We just returned from a 2800 mile trip, and the Curt Hitch worked like a champ! Thanks for following up with me, and for offering such a Great Product! The Customer Service from etrailer is Wonderful!