Video Transcript for Installing the EcoHitch Stealth 2" Trailer Hitch Receiver on a 2024 Subaru Crosstrek

Hey there, neighbors. Kevin here with etrailer, and today we're gonna be taking a look at and showing you how to install the Ecohitch trailer hitch receiver here on our 2024 Subaru Crosstrek. The Subaru Crosstrek is a vehicle designed for getting out and actually doing something in nature, and the best way to do that is to have a trailer hitch on the back of your Subaru, so that way you can actually haul all that gear, and fun accessories that you need to enjoy yourself while you're out. This specific hitch is going to be from Ecohitch, and they have a removable receiver, so that way you can have a completely hidden look anytime when you are done, and you don't want to have that trailer hitch receiver tube in the way. The cross tube itself is going to sit inside of our fascia, so once we pop out the one bolt on the side of this, we can just drop it right out, and chuck it in the back of our car, and be ready to go. This trailer hitch is made of all recycled metal, so you are staying green when you purchase this hitch.

The receiver tube itself is made of a stainless steel that is powder coated, so that way you have that nice clean finish on there, and you don't have to worry about it getting all rusted or corroded out, and starting to look orange, like most other trailer hitches are, from just sitting out in the elements over time. Now, this has a 3,500 pound gross towing weight capacity, which is our capacity when we are towing a trailer, and a 525 pound tongue weight capacity, which is that downward force on the inside of our receiver tube. And, that's gonna be your cargo carriers and your bike racks and then anything that you're loading onto it. Now, just because this hitch has that capacity, doesn't mean that your vehicle can actually handle that, so you will wanna make sure that you double check your owner's manual, and figure out what the vehicle's capacities are, and go with whichever is lower to make sure that you're staying safe while towing. Now, when it comes to hauling around accessories, or towing a trailer, there are a few measurements we want to take into account.

First one being ground clearance. So from the ground up to the inside top edge of our receiver tube, it's sitting at right around 15 inches. Now, we really wanna see about 12 inches minimum, otherwise you're probably gonna need to get yourself some sort of adapter to raise that height up. Otherwise, if you take a steep incline or decline, you might end up bottoming out, and having the shank, or part of whatever your accessory is scraping the ground. So with 15 inches we should be pretty good, we shouldn't really run into any kind of clearance issues that way.

And, the second one is if we have a folding accessory, and we wanna fold it up, you need to make sure that it's not gonna accidentally hit your rear fascia. And for that, we're just gonna measure from the center of our hitch pin out to the furthest point of our fascia, which looks like it's right around three and three quarters. So if you go to your accessory, and you measure from the center of the hitch pin hole to the closest part of your accessory, when it is folded up, and you have at least four inches or more, you know you'll be in good shape, and be able to actually fold that up, without accidentally rubbing up against the fascia. Now, along with that accessory, you will wanna also have a five eighths hitch pin and clip. That way you can secure it into the trailer hitch receiver.

This is not gonna come with it, so you will want to make sure that you purchase it separately. I highly recommend picking one that is an anti-rattle, as well as locking, so that way you can make sure that nothing's rattling around in here, and taking any extra abuse, and no one's gonna walk off with your equipment. Now since our receiver tube is removable, the safety chain loops are made onto the cross tube here, instead. So it is hidden up in here. An S style hook fits in here, no problem at all, and it doesn't look like it's gonna bind up at all. Let's see, with our larger clevis style. (clip clicks) So larger clevis style also is fitting, no problem, not really binding up at all. The only thing is it might rub against your fascia here, so if that actually does get pulled on, you'll probably see some good marks on the bottom of the fascia, but with how low that is, it'd probably be hidden, anyway. So should be good there. But, in most cases, you're typically not gonna be using this large of a clevis with the capacity that this vehicle can actually tow. Now, as far as the install goes, this one isn't really too hard. We're just popping out a couple of plugs, and lowering our exhaust, and then we're just gonna fish wire some hardware through, and be pretty much done at that point. Just tightening it up is really all there is to it. There's no fascia removal, there's no trimming of anything, so this is one of the easier options. But, that being said, not everyone's gonna own a torque wrench, or want to actually get under their car, and do this. So if that's the case for you, please feel free to use our dealer locator, and you can enter in your zip code to find a shop near you, and get it professionally installed. If you're wanting to do it yourself, though, stick around, and I'll walk you through the process. All right, starting off our install, we're gonna be setting up our cam strap, to help hold up our exhaust. And, to do so, we're gonna put one hook on our coil spring on one side, and then we'll move over to our other side, pop that on too. And, I'm gonna tighten that up just a bit to hold it, and we'll want that to be right under our exhaust because we are gonna be dropping down the rubber isolators. So there's two on our driver's side, one over on our passenger's side. And, before we get that going, I'm gonna spray it with a little bit of lube to help make this little process a little bit easier. (can sprays) And then, with either a pry bar, or if you have a removal tool, you can use that, as well. I'm gonna just pop that out, and keep doing the same thing over on our driver's side. Now, back past our muffler, there's gonna be one more isolator we're gonna pop off, it's right here. Push that on through. (metal clangs) And now, our cam shaft has a good hold of it, and we've got way more room to work with now at our frame rails, because the next step's gonna be popping out our little covers here. And then, we're gonna have to enlarge some holes, because we are going to be fishing in our hardware. So you might need to grab a little flathead screwdriver, you can poke up in there and pop it out. Pop that out. And then, we're gonna start fish wiring our hardware. Now, we're gonna go from, in the instructions they say from B to A. So this is our larger hole right here. So we're gonna use our fish wire, and that's going to be this super long single fish wire that they give you, so it make sure you don't tear it up, because they only give you one. And, on this we have our star washer, right here, that's got all those little teeth, that's gonna bite in on there, and not allow this to back off. And then, we have our spacer block. So we'll want to fish these up one part at a time after we get our fish wire through. So what I like to do is just kind of bend the very end of the fish wire down. So once I get it through, I can have that kind of hook onto the hole I'm trying to get into. And, usually, I'll kind of try to stick my finger in there too, and feel for it. There we go. (metal clangs) So here's where we will separate, and do one at a time. (metal clatters) Pull that over, and then I'm gonna untwist this, so we can save our fish wire, and reuse it. Now, for this one we're gonna reverse fish wire it. So we're gonna put our bolt in first. We'll push that up out of the way. Push in our spacer block. And then, now we'll wanna pull back down with our fish wire and once we get everything lined up properly, that should pop right on through. All right, I had to push it back in just a bit so I could get it to line right back up, and then I was able to pull it out. But, once again, we are going to unthread this, and then we're just gonna repeat this same process over on our driver's side. All right, now with an extra set of hands, we're gonna raise our hitch into place, and we're gonna have to be very careful. We don't wanna push those bolts back up, especially 'cause we don't have fish wires on 'em, like we typically would. So we are gonna line this right up, and then our hardware is going to be two flat washers, which they give you, a split lock washer, and then a hex nut to finish it off. (metal clangs) All right, once you get one on there on each side, that'll help hold the hitch up, and then you can use both hands to get the rest of it in place. (metal clangs) All right, I'm gonna snug each one of these bolts down real quick. (tool whirs) And then, we can come back with our torque wrench. (wrench clicks and beeps) Next, we're gonna put in our receiver tube. So this is one where you can remove it. So if you're really looking for that clean look without any kind of receiver tube, you just want it hidden completely, then you could easily just pop this out. Now, anytime you do that, you will have to re-torque your bolt when you go to actually put it back in, and use the trailer hitch. Now, we're gonna slide this on and it's gonna have a flat washer and a split lock washer that we're gonna be using. And, once we get everything lined up, we can run that through. And, on the other side of our receiver tube there is a bar that runs up with a weld nut on it, and we're gonna be using a 15/16 socket to tighten this down with. (tool whirs) And then, we'll come back with our torque wrench. (wrench clicks and beeps) Now we have all of our bolts torqued down, it's time to reinstall our exhaust here. So we're gonna just have to push it back up, and get each one of our rubber isolators back in place. Well, that's gonna do it for our look at and installation of the Ecohitch trailer hitch receiver here on our 2024 Subaru Crosstrek. My name's Kevin, and if you still have some questions about what's gonna be the right trailer hit receiver for your Crosstrek, please feel free to reach out to us via our ask the experts link, a comment on this video, or a phone call to our customer service department, and we'd be happy to help you out on your journey.