Video Transcript for What to Know About the Reese M5 5th Wheel Trailer Hitch for Max Duty Underbed Mounting System

Hello, everybody. This is Jeff at etrailer.com. Today we're going to take a look at this Reese M5 Fifth Wheel Trailer Hitch for the Max Duty Underbed Mounting System. This has a 14,000 pound gross towing weight capacity. Now, this fifth wheel hitch is designed to mount in your truck bed so that you can tow your fifth wheel trailer. As we mentioned, this hitch here is designed to work exclusively with the Reese Max Duty Underbed Mounting Systems that we do sell separately on our website.

And just to pop up an insert to show you what we're talking about, that's the Max Duty Underbed System that'll install in your vehicle. Once that's installed, this will allow you to drop this hitch right into the openings and lock it into place. And again, we do sell those separately on our website. Now, this hitch is a simple installation. All you have to do is open the latches on the side, drop the legs into the openings of that Max Duty Underbed System.

And I did wanna zoom in to show you how to do that. If you notice on each side, I'm gonna just show you one side, but you'll do the same on the other side. To install it, pop open the lynch pin, rotate the latch of quarter of a turn, that one a quarter of a turn, and then you'll do the same one this side, so in all four corners you'll open up the tabs, and now it's ready to drop into that underbed system. Drop this into the openings. Once they drop in the place, just rotate these handles back, and that rotates the tab at each corner as it's locked into the underbed system.

Put your lynch pin back in, it holds the handles in place, and you're all ready to go. One thing I do wanna mention is this hitch is not compatible with the factory installed OEM underbed mounting systems. As we mentioned, this is exclusively for the Reese Max Duty Underbed Systems. The jaw on this, it's a single piece, always ready talon jaw. It's designed to wrap around the kingpin to ensure proper connection.

The jaw is self-latching, so it'll automatically secure your trailer's kingpin when it moves into the jaw. Now, I do want to demonstrate that. Basically, I have an example. Here's what the kingpin would look like on your fifth wheel. So what you want to do, like I said, this is all ready to go. So basically, when you go to hook up to your fifth wheel, your kingpin will slide right into place. You notice, you'll hear that jaw come all the way around. The handle drops into place, these holes line up, and it includes this pin and clip that you can drop in there and clip it, and that'll secure your handle. But what's nice about this is it comes with the pin and clip, but if you want extra security, the hole is made large enough. You could put a padlock through there for extra security, so to keep anybody from operating it. That lock is not included, we do sell those separately. Now, the design of this offers a nice jaw to kingpin contact for maximum security and minimum rattle. And also, as we mentioned, the jaw is always ready to receive, so you don't have to open the hitch before hooking up. Right now, we unlatch the pin. So if you're ready to unhook, all you have to do pull the handle out and rotate it all the way towards the cab as far as it'll go, and it'll stay in the open position, and it releases that latch. So then when you pull away from the fifth wheel, the kingpin will slide out just like that. And again, if you notice, this handle automatically goes back into ready to receive position, so you don't have to keep opening this, it's all ready to go to hook up again. Now, it does offer a high pin lockout to ensure proper engagement. Basically, the jaw has an internal plate in here that'll keep the kingpin from entering if it's too high to enter safely. And over on the corner here, it has a tow or no tow indicator, which is visible from the cab or the side of the bed. And what that indicator does, it'll show you, it'll change from red to green if the kingpin is fully engaged correctly. If it is not, it'll still show red over here. So just by looking at what color is showing, like right now, it's showing red, which means you're not hooked up. Once you install it with the kingpin, if it shows green, that means you're all ready to go. So it's a nice indicator for you if you're in the cab and you can just turn around and look at that. The head on this is a fully articulating head. You can see it goes front to back, side to side. It has a very extra-large landing area to ease the hook up, help them with chucking. And if you notice, right up here at the front has a V notch, so it makes it really easy to target your kingpin as you back up. The handle we showed you, it's an ergonomic, easy to reach handle. This will let you secure the trailer to the hitch with the pin and clips, as we mentioned, are the padlock for extra security. And what's nice about this handle is you can see, you can put two fingers on it and it operates just with two fingers. The wide center section on this creates a nice, solid, stable towing experience. And also, when you install this head into the cross member here, you can get improved cab clearance with an offset design. The head can be installed and have an offset of either one and a half inches front or rear. And again, as you install it into the cross member, there's a range of adjustable height settings to fit your application. It's always critical when you hook up that you have the correct height, so your fifth wheel and that your towing is gonna be level. It'll give you a range when you install this, anywhere from 14 inches to 18 inches of hitch height. And that's always measured from the truck bed to the top of the hitch head. Now, this is a sturdy steel construction. As you can see, it has a nice, durable powder finish on it. The handle is zinc. The latches, the jaw is all zinc plated to resist corrosion. A few specs on this, again, the gross towing weight capacity is 14,000 pounds. Vertical load limit is 2,800 pounds. But that's gonna do it for the review on this Reese M5 Fifth Wheel Trailer Hitch for the Max Duty Underbed Mounting System.