Roadmaster Direct-Connect Base Plate Kit - Removable Arms
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2012 Mini Cooper
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2012 Mini Cooper
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This base plate keeps the front of your vehicle looking clean when you’re not towing. The direct-connect brackets sit farther back than standard setups, so once the removable drawbars are out, the remaining parts are virtually invisible and protected within the grille. There’s no obtrusive quick-disconnect crossbar sticking out, so you get a factory-style look that stays out of the way when you’re just driving around.
Connecting and disconnecting is simple. Each arm slides into the bracket, twists to lock in place, and stays secured until you pull the built-in release ring. To remove, just pull the pin, twist, and slide it free. The system uses 3/4" diameter pins to attach the tow bar, giving a solid connection that’s easy to handle whether you’re parked in your driveway or at a campsite.
The computer-cut, all-steel build gives this base plate exceptional strength while the black powder coat finish adds corrosion resistance for long-term durability. It bolts directly to the vehicle’s frame and doesn’t require any welding. The design spreads towing forces evenly across the chassis so you can tow confidently mile after mile.
This kit is built for Roadmaster motor-home-mounted tow bars that slide into a trailer hitch—like the Nighthawk, Sterling, Blackhawk, Blackhawk 2, Falcon, or Falcon 2. Because it’s a direct-connect system, there’s no need for a quick-disconnect crossbar. That means fewer parts to manage and a cleaner overall connection from tow bar to base plate.
Roadmaster direct-connect base plates will only work with Roadmaster tow bars that slide into a trailer hitch, such as the Nighthawk, Sterling, Blackhawk, Blackhawk 2, Falcon, or Falcon 2. These base plates will not work with tow bars that require a hitch ball.
Videos are provided as a guide only. Refer to manufacturer installation instructions and specs for complete information.
Shane: Hi, I'm Shane with etrailer.com. Today, you're going to be taking a look at and I'm going to walk through the installation of the Roadmaster Direct Connect Base Plate on your 2018 Subaru Forester.There are five main components for a flat tow set up. You have your base plate. You have your diode wiring kit. You have your braking system, your tow bar, and your safety cables.Your base plate is going to attach directly to the chassis of the vehicle. It's going to give you a solid connection point for your tow bar.
Your tow bar is going to be the attachment point from your base plate to your RV. Safety cables, they're going to be a secondary safety device in case your tow bar fails.Your braking system is going to sit inside the vehicle or mount inside the towed vehicle. It's going to allow the vehicle to not only slow but stop itself, so we're not relying on the brakes in the RV to do both.Our wiring, that's going to allow our Subaru to receive light functions from our RV, so that we're safe when we're flat-towing and people know what we're doing, whether we're braking, turning, or driving at night.Now, there is a possibility of a sixth component that's going to be needed depending on the wiring system that you're using. If you're installing a diode wiring kit, it's going to require a brake light relay. The relay attaches to the brake light wire inside the vehicle.
It keeps your brake light signal from overriding your turn signal.If you're installing a ball and socket kit, you're not going to need a brake light relay, but keep in mind you are going to have to drill a hole in the back of your tail light housing to get the ball installed, and with these tail lights there is not a whole lot of room to do that.Now, our base plate is going to be a custom fit base plate for our Subaru Forester. It's going to be a black powder coated seal, so it's really going to resist any rust or corrosion. Roadmasters puts really thick welds on their base plates, so we're not going to have to worry about this breaking down over time.It's going to have removable arms. When the arms are removed. You can see it's going to maintain a nice clean look on the front of the vehicle.
It's going to have a spring loaded pin. To remove them, simply pull the ring, twist, and then slide them out. To install them, slide them in until it pushes the pin in, and twist it until it locks. You want to make sure that this tab here is facing in and up.These are going to be your safety chain loops. We're going to have a cross beam, and that's going to have a pre-welded bracket for your breakaway switch for your braking system.
It's also going to have two free welded pegs. This allows you to mount your six pole plug for your wiring.Now that we've gone over some of the features, let's walk through the installation together. We're going to have six push pin fasteners along the top here. You take a trim panel tool or a flathead screwdriver. You're going to have one right at the corner of your fascia there, one here, and here.We're going to have a push pin fastener on each side, on the inside of the fender well. And then underneath the vehicle we're going to have three more fasteners. We're going to have one here. We're going to have one here, and we're going to have one right in this corner. Now, we're going to do the same thing on the other side.Now, we're going to start moving our fascia. We're going to start on the very outside edge and work our way to the center. If you have fog lights, make sure you don't just pull your fascia off. Pull it off slowly, and then unplug your fog lights. We're going to pull out, release the tabs, and then we'll set our fascia aside to be reinstalled later.Actually we're going to take a 10 millimeter socket, and we're gonna remove this outside bumper core cover. We're going to have four bolts along the bottom. We're going to have one in each corner and one right up here in the center on the top. Take your trim panel tool, we're going to pop this lower foam piece off just like that. We're going to do that on both sides.Now, on each frame rail where this overlaps your frame, you're going to go a 1/2" in and then center it between this line and this line, so you can see where I have it marked there. You're going to do that on both sides. Now where we marked, we're going to have to drill a 1/2" hole there. It looks like our horn might be getting in the way, so what we're going to do is take a 10 millimeter socket, and I'm going to remove it, and we'll just let it down to the side.I'm going to start with a pilot hole. What I like to do to make it easier is start with a small one and just step up every couple sizes each bit until you get up to a 1/2", or you can use a step bit. Now, you're going to do that same thing on the other side.Now, we're going to install our brackets. These are going to fit inside the frame rail. This back hole, we're going to bolt from the outside of the frame through the frame rail into the bracket. You want to make sure that you have the correct back to the correct side. This hole, you can see how it's towards the one side more. It's going to be on the top like this, so this one is going to be our driver's side. 1/2" bolt, lock washer, flat washer, you want to make sure you use Red Loctite on all of your hardware. Red Loctite does not come with the kit. You can find it here at etrailer.comWe're going to slide it inside the frame rail. We're going to line up this hole with the hole that we drilled and we're going to thread in our bolt. We're just going to loosely install it for now. We're going to do that same thing on the other side.We're going to set our main receiver brace in position, another 1/2" bolt, flat washer and lock washer. Make sure you're using Red Loctite. We're going to take this bolt, and we're going to bolt through to the bracket inside the frame rail.On the driver's side only, this wire loom we need to pop it loose. We're going to take a 1/2" drill bit. This lower hole and our main receiver brace we need to go all the way through, through the backside of the frame rail. It might be a good idea to take a piece of metal, or a block of wood or something, and stick it in here so that when your drill bit comes through you don't damage your wiring. All we're doing is, there is a hole in there that your wire loom would attach to and we're just enlarging it.We're going to take our longer 1/2" bolt, and you're going to need the large washer like this, a lock washer, and a nut, Red Loctite. We're going to run our bolt through all the way to through the other side on the hole we drilled. We're going to put on this plate first.The hole we just drilled around our driver's side here, you'll notice this lip and this lip is not allowing me to get my washer or this large washer on, so what we're going to do is we're going to open this hole up a little bit more. On the passenger side, that's a very large hole, so it allows you to move the head of that bolt over just a little bit, or I'm sorry, the end of this bolt. We're just going to take a bigger drill bit and open that hole up a little bit more.Now, we're going to have four small hex head bolts, a small lock washer, a small flat washer. You're going to have four for each side. They're going to bolt right into the existing weld nuts from the bumper inaudible 00:08:32. Two on the top, and we'll have two on the bottom. Once you have all your hardware installed, you're going to tighten everything and then torque it to the specifications in the instructions.Once you've got everything tied and torqued down, or reinstalled anything that you may have pulled off to get out of the way, it's a good idea if you are adding anything else like your braking system or diode wiring to go ahead and add that now before you put the fascia back in place. Once you install the fascia, you're just going to do it in reverse order from the way you took it off.Again, I'm Shane with etrailer.com. I hope this video has helped you whether you're still deciding or installing Roadmaster's Direct Connect Base Plate on your 2018 Subaru Forester.
Customer Satisfaction Score:
92% were satisfied with this product
8% of customers were not satisfied
Ratings & Reviews
Put this on a 2014 Honda CR-V. This is a very well made base plate setup! The overall design, welds and powder coating are outstanding! Shipping was super fast too! The install video by etrailer was close to perfect and really helped to take the "scary" out of doing the job. The only change I would like to see in the video is during the grill removal. He says to just yank it forward to get the clips to release. Unfortunately, most of the specialized clips broke doing it this way. Had I known, I would have slipped a thin tool just below the grill to get the clips to unlock/release. Also, on the wrap around, bumper cover, some of the tabs on the bumper cover ripped out and I had to do some creative plastic welding or fiberglass resin/cloth to repair. These clips have a release tab also. I suggest finding specific videos on youtube to remove the plastic body parts and grill. I got it all done and it works perfectly! I really love the almost invisible tow receivers on the car (when the arms are removed). Our last toad was a 1997 Nissan Hardbody pickup that has permanent knee busting/shin smashing protrusions. I am super happy with everything we have bought from etrailer over the past 18 years!
It mounted up just as the instructions said it would. From previous research I was not surprised when some of the mounting did not align perfectly. Had to use a dremel tool to make it work. The product looks very sturdy from its design. I’m happy with it and look forward to RV traveling.
Good product. If you are reasonably handy and have some tools, you can install this yourself in a few hours. I'm a mechanic, it took me a little over 2 hours to install on my own toad. The fit is good, there are 4 holes you have to drill, otherwise it is plug and play. When you insert and twist lock the tow bar mounts into their sockets they feel a little sloppy but they are secure, and i never noticed any rattle when towing. Overall i give it a 4 out of 5 for easy install and clean look after install. Pic included of installed base plate.
This was a bit of a challenge to install on a 2026 Chevrolet Colorado Z71. One item to be aware of, as you take off the front Facia of the truck for the install, there are two Facia "brakets" that attach to the front fenders that seem like they are use once plastic snaps. Three of the 4 snaps broke off on both sides when I removed the facia. These are about $35 a piece from Chevy and prevent you from making this a 1 day job. Additionally, there are 2 7mm screws/bolts that connect one of the coolers to the back of the bumper support and these are a real problem to get back in - over an hour of time and every 1/4" tool in my arsenal was needed to find a way to get these started. Finally, one of the Connecting Plates (Passenger side) needed to holes to be elongated to enable all the bolts to be started. Finally - you need to put the Brakaway bracket on the driver side, to have enough cable to reach you brake system. Probably have 4 hours in the disassembly and installation of the Direct-Connect Plate. Now waiting a couple days for the plastic brackets from Chevy to complete the install. Good Luck!!
Excellent base plate, just as my wife requested, she didn’t want too much metal visible in front of the bumper. Installation instructions were a bit confusing for me, but I’ll clarify, for me.
Very fast shipping, and the install was easy. Great product
2002 Honda CR-V. Easy to install. Two and a half hours, and stopped to eat a sandwich. To install the spacers inside the roll frame on the car I used an extension magnet to reach in there and position them. As you can see NO cutting was needed on the bumper cover!
Now I have to figure out the easiest way to run the wiring for the lights.
Thanks Lauren A for your help!
Awesome instructions! Install was fairly easy. Product is very high quality and solid construction. Thank you E Trailer!
I installed this base plate on a 2018 Miata RF. I think I recall something about it taking 3.5 hours and my initial estimate was 3.5 days. It actually took a bit longer than that, but I was not pushing myself and did not have the luxury of having the vehicle on a lift but had it up on two ramps for the front wheels.
The order came pretty quickly, probably about 4 or 5 days between the time I placed it and UPS delivered it. The parts were well packaged and it came with a printed set of instructions. I had watched the video install on another Miata and if it weren't for that I'm not sure I would have tried it. I'm not a pro mechanic by any means but have worked on my own vehicles now for over 40 years. And I'm not a spring chicken either, so all the up and down working on the car can tire me fairly quickly. But if you are not in a rush and go carefully it can be done.
It took a day to do most of the disassembly. I removed both headlights and the intake tube on the passenger side. That tube came out much easier then it went back in.
The next day I got the baseplate mounted which helped to start visualizing how it all would work. All of the holes for the 6mm bolts did not quite line up with the holes in the frame. I had to file one sides worth for a bit of extra clearance. From my experience on this install you really want to leave all the bolt on the loose side till you get everything situated.
A couple of days off for rain and the then I got to work on the bracing. Initially I though I didnt need to cut the top lip of the frame but I decided to go ahead and do it anyway since that part didnt seem to sit flat when bolted from the back end. I'm still not sure its really necessary as the hump clears the metal lip without cutting it.
I also ordered a 14" long 1/2" drill bit to cut the holes in the frame. It was a Bosch bit, wasnt very expensive and it went through the metal like the proverbial hot knife. I managed to get all the big bolts installed in a day with a great sense of satisfaction.
The next day I torqued down all the bolts and the mount felt very solid. They stress that you need to install all the bolts, but honestly I can't see the 6mm bolts doing much compared to the half inch bolts that do most or all of the work. But I put them in and tightened them all the same.
A couple of days spent to install the tail light wiring and then I got back on to putting the front clip back on. My car must have had an aftermarket grill since it did not match the pictures or the video. I tried to position it carefully to see where the parts that were going to stick out would be so I didnt cut out more than I needed to. So there was a good amount of back and forth, cut and fit. In the end I had to make some extra cuts for clearance for the safety cable tabs as well as the mount for the 6 wire connector. Until I made the extra cuts the lower part of the front clip would not seat correctly. Getting the clip in the right position so it fits under the lights also takes some finagling.
Figuring out where all the bolts go back in can be interesting. Take pictures where you can. Dont be too aggressive when working with plastic parts. Overall I'm satisfied with the install, but I have yet to try and hook it up to tow.
Easy to install needed to replace some fasteners as they broke removing front grill was able to get them from Amazon cheap
Easy installation! Etrailer videos are very informative and helpful! Always great to have a helper too!
This Road Master Direct connect base plate works perfectly for a 2020 ford transit cargo 250! Awesome service from etrailer as usual! The finished product can barely be seen through the front fascia!
It was shipped promply. I installed it myself using the included step by step instructions and videos from etrailer. It all went well (though I had to come back and reconnect the sensor plug- my bad).
I tow a Jeep Grand Cherokee Trailhawk and this base plate is nearly invisible when not towing. Works well.
I bought and installed this tow plate one year ago on my 2013 Jeep Wrangler. I bought this particular plate due to the jeep having a Barricade off-road bumper. This plate attaches a bit lower than other plates and prevented having to modify the bumper. Installation was easy involving only hand tools. The plate comes with all needed bolts and attachments. I have towed this Jeep several thousand miles behind my RV with absolutely no issues. As an aside, I use a Roadmaster Night Hawk tow bar which is also an excellent product. Both are expensive, but I believe cheaping-out on safety is no a good idea. I highly recommend this product.
This works perfect with my Roadmaster tow bar. It was a little difficult to install since I had to remove the front end of the Trailblazer, but with the good directions that came with it and some you tube videos made the installation easier.
Had these installed at Lester’s Automotive in Boerne,Texas…First class service all the way. Paul and his crew worked through lunch for over 4 hours to install these on our 2026 Ford Ranger. Also ran the wire and hooked up my auxiliary tow lights. The price for this was very reasonable and would highly recommend them for all r.v. needs even if not real close to the Boerne area. R.V park within reasonable distance if needed.
Etrailer comes through again! This was a great savings as a used kit, but it was even better than the description online. I have installed (4) baseplates on and etrailer.com has given me great videos to watch and good instructions to follow. Couldn't be more pleased with the quality, service and delivery times.
Perfect
Easy to work with. Does what it's designed for. No regrets. We've pulled our Forrester over 6,000 miles without a problem.
Seems like the inserts wobble a lot when towing could have been perhaps millimeter tighter to give a more snug fit. The cross bar unit on my Suzuki samurai and Chevy tracker fit tighter.
So far, so good. Product arrived quickly, in good shape. Clear, concise, well-illustrated instructions made installation easy. Product fit well and seems very strong. Please ask me again after a couple thousand miles.
Allows us to tow the car with the motorhome - easy to connect and disconnect with blue ox tow bars
Judith
7/15/2022
Great product! Towed Subaru Forester up and down the east coast no issues.
Garden prompt service quick delivery
Really great product. Easy to install and seems super solid. I have towed my 2015 Subaru Forester 2500 miles with it with zero issues.
The folks at etrailer are fantastic. I didn't know everything I needed to tow my car behind our RV... but they did! Everything I needed was in the boxes and the videos made it all come together. Thank you to everyone at etrailer!
Brooke M.
4/27/2025
It ain't nothin' but a thang, Matthew! I hope you know we will always be here if you ever have any more projects we can help you with :)
Matthew
4/25/2026
Weve been using our Roadmaster set up for over two years and have traveled several thousand miles. All I do is make sure everything is cleaned and lubed. No problems so far.
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Janine C.
12/20/2021
7500 miles, still strong!