Video Transcript for Installing the EcoHitch Hidden Trailer Hitch Receiver on a 2025 Hyundai Ioniq 5

Hi everyone, Jesse here with etrailer. Today we'll be taking a look at and I'll show you how to install the EcoHitch Custom Fit Trailer Hitch Receiver on our 2025 Ioniq 5. Even though the Ioniq 5 is an electric car, that doesn't mean you're not gonna be taking it out on your adventures. And a great way to add some extra storage to your vehicle is adding a hitch. Once you have this hitch installed, you can throw in accessories such as a bike rack or a cover carrier, or you can even do some light duty towing with it. Here's a closer hook at our hitch installed on our neighbor's vehicle.

The hitch does install behind the fascia, so you won't be seeing the cross tubes at all. All you'll really be able to see is the receiver opening, which has a nice matte black paint finish to it. That's gonna be your standard 2" by 2" receiver opening. Behind that is another standard 5/8 pinhole. The pin and clip are not included with the hitch.

However, we have many options available here at etrailer. Also, any accessory that you add on will most likely come with one. And we have a nice sturdy safety cable loop here. Very easy to access with whatever style safety cable you have. We're gonna have style like this or even a large Clovis like this.

Now for some quick measurements, we'll start with our ground clearance. This is gonna sit pretty low to the ground. Looks like we're a little bit over 11," that's from the ground to the top of the inside of the collar. Then from the center of our pinhole to the edge of our bumper here is right at about 4 1/2," that's the number you'll wanna keep in mind for any folding accessories that you might add on to ensure that don't make contact with the vehicle. As far our weight capacities with this hitch, we have a gross trailer weight of 4,000 pounds.

That's the amount of weight that you can pull behind the vehicle. Then we have a maximum tongue weight of 400 pounds, that's the amount of weight pushing down on the hitch. Always be sure to double check your vehicle's owner's manual, compare those numbers and go off the lowest rated component to make sure that you're safe out there on the road. All in all, if you're looking for a hitch for the back of your Ioniq 5, there's really not a lot of options out there, but I think the EcoHitch looks great on the back of our neighbor's vehicle. If you have any questions or concerns about this hitch or anything else we offer here at etrailer, feel free to reach out to us. We'd be happy to get you pointed in the right direction. And when it comes to the installation with this hitch, you do have to remove the fascia. So if that's not something that you're looking to do yourself, check out our dealer locator. You can find someone local to you that would be happy to get you set up. If you are looking to see, how this gets installed. and follow along, and I'll walk you through the process. We'll start our installation by removing our tail lights. So there's a hard plastic cover going over it. There's a little notch up here. If you get a plastic trim tool like this under it, you should be able to pop it out. And then we have two more notches on the side here, get those popped out and just carefully lift this out of position. Make sure all those tabs are completely released. And we have two 10 millimeter bolts. (socket drill whirling) Remove those. (socket drill whirling) We can pull our taillight out. It's just held in by a couple clips back here and then to unplug it, I'm gonna reach in, pull this grommet out and guide that wire through the hole, and then you'll find your plug push on the tab, separate the two and then we don't wanna just let this go because it's gonna be hard to fish it out of this tiny hole. So what I'll do is use some painter tape and just tape it up like this, that way it doesn't fall off. With our taillight out of our way, we have two push clips to remove. You can just use a flathead screwdriver or a trim panel tool like this, pop the center out and pop the entire thing out. And once we have those removed, we have an eight millimeter screw. We'll get that removed. (socket drill whirling) And from this point on anything we do on this side, we'll just repeat that same process on the other side. Now inside of our wheel well area, we will have a variety of fasteners to remove. I'll start with this 10 millimeter. (socket drill whirling) I'll just work my way down. The next one is just a push pin. So once again, pop piece center out of it and then you can pop the entire thing out. And then we have two Phillips screws, one here and one down there. (socket wrench cranking) We have one more push pin fastener holding up that felt liner. So we'll pop that out. That's gonna allow us to peel that liner back and now we can get our hands behind our wheel will trim here and we'll wanna pull straight out on that. There's a couple clips here and here you can kind of reach back and manipulate those clips. It's gonna be tough to see, but there's a tab on this side of it. I'm trying to push in on that to allow me to pull this out, but you just wanna be careful and one clip at a time. (clip pops) Got those two and then this third one you're not able to access behind here and it seems to be the most stubborn one. Just carefully pull it straight back and it should release. (clip pops) Just like that. And then I'll grab something to just kinda hold our trim out away so we can get our fascia removed from the side. Now underneath the vehicle we have four more push pin fasteners to remove. So let's go down the line and get all those popped out. (pins clicking) Now, we're ready to pull our fascia off. I'd recommend grabbing extra set of hands. I have my very good friend Daniel here to help me out. So we'll start on the outside, just gently pulling back, releasing all the clips, and we'll make our way towards the center. Don't pull it out too far because we have a wiring connector. So there's a push tab here to allow you to release this gray clip. Pull back on that clip, that'll disconnect it. Now we can set it aside. We need to remove our bumper beam here that's held in by two 12 millimeter bolts on both sides. (socket drill whirling) Get the one side removed and then. (socket drill whirling) Just make sure that you're holding onto it while you're removed the two bolts on the other side. (socket drill whirling) And we can pull it off as these guide pins that you have to pull straight out, and we'll set it aside. Then we can bolt on our side brackets. These are side specific, but really it only kind of fit into place one way. So just check both sides, make sure you have the right one. We're gonna line it up with these mounting holes and then there's this bar that comes out, that kind of slots in nicely. And we'll take our finer threaded bolts out of our kit with a flat washer and these silver split washers and we'll leave both those in for now and all three of those well nuts. Now with both of our side brackets in place, we can slide our hitch and get it all lined up and push through our bracket. Once you get one side lined up, we can start a bolt and top that off with a copper split washer and a nut. Now hold it in place so we can get the rest of our hardware installed. In order to get the driver's side lined up with the bracket, I did have to put quite a bit of force up against this plug here. If you we inchesre really having it fight you, you could just use a trim panel tool and pop that off and try to relocate it. Just make sure that you secure it down once you're done. Now I'll get the rest of my hardware in place. Now we can tighten our hardware down. We'll start with the bolts on the side here that are holding our hitch. We'll need a 19 or 3/4" socket and wrenched to hold the nut. And once you have all those tightened down, we can move on to tightening down our side brackets. (socket drill whirling) Now we'll take our torque wrench and go over everything and torque down to the specification in the instructions. And they do you want you to start with your cross tube bolts first and then move on to the side rack. (torque wrench cranks) (torque wrench beeps) (torque wrench cranks) (torque wrench beeps) Before we can reinstall our fascia, we need to cut it out just a little bit. There's a diagram in the instructions. Essentially you're finding center, I measure between these two holes, found by center. Then you go 2/3" across and 4 1/2" up. I'll be making this cut with a multi-tool. You can use dremel, just whatever you have that will cut through this plastic. (dremel vibrating) Maybe we could pop that out. There is two layers of plastic, so you gotta go in pretty deep with it. We'll pop it out and clean up our edges with a file or razor blade and then we can reinstall our fascia. And before you reinstall your fascia, just remember to reinstall your bumper beam and then before reinstalling the fascia, it's just gonna be the opposite of how we took it off. Once you have your fascia reinstalled, that's gonna do it for our look at and installation of the EcoHitch custom fit trailer Hitch receiver on our 2025 Hyundai Ioniq 5.