Video Transcript for Curt Front Mount Trailer Hitch Skid Shield: The Breakdown

Hi there, hard workers and off-roaders, today we're going to be taking a look at CURT's front hitch-mounted skid plate. Now, you may be looking at this and wondering, "Well, what does this thing even do"Well, it's really just a skid plate that protects your front hitch-mounted receiver because, if this wasn't here, and your receiver hit any low-lying objects, it could cause damage to the receiver, whether it bends it or nicks and damages the metal to where you could no longer put anything into the receiver. This just diverts all that away to ensure long lasting operation of your receiver, and it also does protect a portion of the vehicle here at the front.If you do any off-roading, this is also going to keep dirt and debris from collecting up and filling up inside the receiver here, because you don't want to have to spend the time to get the garden hose out and clean out your receiver every time you want to put something in it.This not only provides protection by diverting force away from the receiver in the front of your vehicle, but it also provides information. With the skid plate sticking out a little bit further than the front of your vehicle, if you hit anything you're going to hit here first and it's going to make a nice sound and impact and you're going to know, "Hey, I need to stop or slow down," or, "I just came into contact, I need to pull over," and you can check it out.The front here is a smaller portion where it is flat for anything that you might run into, like a wall or something. If you're parking in the garage, you could hit that first. And then, the bottom here is at a 45, and this is nice because if you have any low-lying objects on the ground, if you we're to hit directly into that, more of the force is transferred between the two, which could cause more damage, but putting it at a 45 helps divert the two objects away from the each other.As the vehicle wants to go forward and the 45 hits, it wants it to raise up, which minimizes the transfer of force between the two so there is less impact that transfers to your vehicle and to you on the inside.

And the whole purpose of this is to take the blunt of the impact. So, if this piece gets damaged but the rest of your vehicle is fine, it's going to be significantly cheaper to just slide this out and put a new one in than it would be to have costly body repairs or to have to re-install a new front mounted hitch because the receiver got damaged.I do also like, here on the front, they included a small hole, and you could use this as a tie down. Maybe you've got a ladder rack with the over the cab extender. This is just one more point of contact you can tie your loads down to.Compared to the draw tight, their shape, size, quality, and finish are all very similar, but the added tie down point in the front here, to me, just makes the CURT a little bit nicer. And I know some of your front mounted hitches don't stick out quite as far as this one in.

They're a little bit more tucked in, and you may be wondering, "Is this going to clear on mine"Well, I've got a few measurements for you to help you determine that. One of the biggest ones is how far it's going to stick out of your receiver, and that's determined based on the pin hole in our skid plate here. From the center of the pin hole to the closest point here, it's going to measure about three and a quarter inches, and from the center of the hitch pin hole to the edge of our skid plate, it's going to measure about six inches. The skid plate here at the front is going to be five inches wide by four and a quarter inches tall.In order to be able to take the blunt of the impact, it needs to be a very robust metal here at the front, so the entire steel construction of it is going to easily be able to knock those objects away. And to help protect the steel, we've got a black powder coat finish, which is also going to give it that nice sheen that it has and protect against rust and corrosion to ensure long lasting operation.And that completes our look at CURT's front hitch-mounted skid plate..