HitchMate Cargo Stabilizer Bar for Compact Pickup Trucks - 50" to 65" Long

Video Transcript for HitchMate Cargo Stabilizer Bar for Compact Pickup Trucks Review

Speaker 1: Today we're going to be taking a look at the HitchMate line of cargo stabilizer bars. If you have pickup truck, a common problem that we run into is that a lot of our cargo seems to slide around whenever we're driving around, especially with the drop in bed liners, it makes it a lot easier for all that cargo to slide around. So let's take a quick ride and see how our cargo does.So we got our HitchMate in place to make sure our cargo isn't going to slide around. One of the first things you might notice is it is rather a beefy, big bar. Now it is going to stay in place pretty well, and even keep some of those heavier objects from sliding around.Our HitchMate cargo bar has a full steel construction, so even if we do have a little bit of moving in our cargo we're not going to have to worry about any kind of cracking or any damage to our bar or our cargo. Now one thing you're really going to appreciate is that there's not any way to accidentally release this.

You can even pull up on the lever and it's not going to release. We're going to have to come to this release knob here, push it in, and then lift the lever to release it. If we have it properly secured down, it's going to stay locked in position and hold everything securely.The feet on our hitch bar are going to be steel, it's going to have a rubber coating around it. We're not going to have to worry about scratching our bed side, and it is going to grip nicely, even on those plastic bed liners like we have here.The teeth along the top of the bar here are going to allow us to make different adjustments to accommodate different sized truck beds. The one we have here is going to be for full sized truck beds.

It's going to collapse all the way down to 59" and extend all the way out to 73". There's also one available for compact trucks that's going to collapse down to 50" and extend all the way to 65".To install out HitchMate cargo bar, the first thing we're going to want to do is unlatch it. We come to this silver tab, we're going to push down and that'll release the locking mechanism. We're going to lift up that handle so that it's all the way released. We're going to loosely put our bar in place, now you don't want to get it too tight to start with.

You want to have a little bit of give because when we rotate that handle down it is going to provide a little bit of tension to keep everything in place. Then that latch is going to keep it nice and secure and make sure our cargo doesn't slide forward or backward making sure it doesn't move around in our bed. With our cargo bar in place we'll take our truck for another drive.HitchMate also offers a support bar that is going to work with our cargo bar to keep our cargo from shifting side to side. Now you can either pick this up separately or as a kit with your cargo bar. Now the way it's going to work is we're just going to push all of our cargo to one side, making sure it's nice and secure.

And then on our support bar, we're going to have these wing nuts that will loosen up and then we're simply just going to put it over the bar and tighten it up by hand. You just want to make sure that it's nice and snug up against your cargo so it can't shift over any more.And we'll be able to put this anywhere along the bar so long as we're not coming into contact with the teeth. A lot of times we're not able to put our cargo in a way that our support bar wouldn't be in this area. So a quick tip is you can actually just turn it upside down that way the teeth are still free and our bar can still be attached to our cargo bar, keeping everything nice and secure.Our support bar is going to be from the end to the end where it attaches to our cargo bar, is going to be 14" long and the opening on our support bar is going to be 1 3/4" long by about 4" wide. So with our cargo secure, let's go ahead and take another drive and see it how it handles.Another way we can use our cargo bar is put it towards the back of our tailgate. That way it will keep our cargo secure but a lot easier to access. Like if we're going to the grocery store we can keep all of our groceries back here, nice and secure, but very easy to unload.That will finish up your look at the HitchMate line of cargo stabilizer bars.