Video Transcript for TowSmart Class III Trailer Hitch DIY Installation - 2015 Dodge Durango

Hey neighbors, Kevin with etrailer, and today we're gonna be taking a look at and showing you how to install TowSmart's square tube trailer hitch receiver here on our 2015 Dodge Durango. If you're planning on hauling around a small utility trailer, maybe you have a bike rack you wanna throw on the back of your vehicle or you have a cargo carrier that you need so you can haul around some extra items while you're out on the go, having the TowSmart trailer receiver is going to be a game changer. With this specific hitch it does give you a hidden cross tube so it is hidden up behind the fascia just a bit and just gives you just that receiver tube sticking out so that you have a nice clean look for your vehicle. Now there are a couple other options where you can have a cleaner look where it's inside the bumper where this little pan will drop down, but if you're wanting a nice easy bolt up installation, then this is gonna be the case so that you're not ripping off the whole fascia just to get your trailer hitch installed. This trailer hitch receiver is gonna come with a 5,000 pound gross towing weight capacity and a 500 pound tongue weight capacity. Now that doesn't mean that you can just throw 5,000 pounds on this hitch and be good to go.

You do still need to verify what your vehicle can handle, so make sure that you go through your owner's manual and figure out what the towing capacity of the vehicle is itself so that way it's not overloaded. Now if you're using this for some accessories, there are a few things that you're gonna wanna take a look at and one of those is being clearance. So that way we know that our bike rack or cargo carrier, whatever accessory we have on the back of here isn't gonna scrape the ground anytime we're going up a steep incline or decline. So from the ground up to the top of the inside of our receiver tube, we're looking at right around 22 and three quarter inches. So this one does sit higher, the majority of it, but we have to knock off eight inches from that.

So we're right around 15 and a quarter because our lift has us sitting about eight inches higher. The other thing with that when it comes to accessories is well what if I have a folding accessory and I wanna flip it up Is that gonna contact my rear fascia So for that measurement we would look at the center of our hitch pin hole out to the furthest point with our fascia. It looks like it's right around five and a half inches, maybe a little bit less at five. So if you look at the shank of your accessory and you measure from the center of the hitch pin hole to the closest part, whenever that is folded back up, you'll need to make sure that you have a little bit more than five, five and a half inches. That way you know it's gonna clear the fascia.

You will need a pin and clip in order to secure your belongings into the trailer hitch receiver, this is gonna be a 5/8 pin and clip. They do not come with your trailer hitch receiver, so you will need to purchase one separately unless it comes with your accessory that you are gonna put in here, which is pretty normal. I do highly recommend picking up a locking one though, that way nobody can take off with your merchandise anytime you're not near your vehicle. Along with that, you'll also need to have some safety chains if you're gonna be towing a trailer. So with our S hook style, we got plenty of movement, plenty of freedom here, so we know that that's not gonna get bound up on anything, so that one's good to go, but if we have a heavier duty clevis pin hook, even that one plenty of room.

Now the final thing you'll need with this so that you can tow a trailer is a trailer wire harness and that's going to be either a four pole or a seven pole depending on what kind of trailer you're trying to pull with you. If you have a trailer with brakes, you are gonna need a seven pole. And before you get to that point, you would need to either have factory wire harness to plug into with that seven pole or a four pole wire harness installed, which would typically just plug right into your taillights and then it would come down here and then you could add on an ETBC7 kit, which would be the seven pole and that would connect to that and have a few other wires to run so that way you could have every one of your signals come through as well as your brake controller. Now to mount that up, you would want to pick up a no-drill mounting bracket and with this specific hitch I'd definitely go with the longer one. You can mount that right to the cross tube and have it stick out. It'd probably come pretty even with the lip of our trailer hitch receiver so it's not sticking out too far, but it's also not gonna be so far back in there like it would be if you use the short bracket instead to where you can actually get that in there and not have to worry about your wiring getting caught up if you start to make a turn. So if you need help picking out wiring, definitely reach out. You can use our fit guide as well to easily go through and just enter in your year, make, model of your vehicle and figure out which one's gonna be the right fit for you. Installation of this hitch is super easy. It's something you can do all by yourself. The only extra tool you'd honestly really need is just a torque wrench so you can tighten down the factory hardware to the correct specifications. Now you can typically pick some of those up at your local auto parts store and just rent it so that way you're not spending any money. If not, you can also pick up a torque wrench from here. We offer a variety of different ones as well so that you can get this properly installed. Now if you aren't wanting to do this, maybe you just don't have the time or you just don't have those tools to do so, you can use our dealer locator, just enter in your zip code and you can find a local shop to get it professionally installed. Now if you are wanting to do it yourself, please stick around and I'll show you how I did it. To start for install, you don't technically have to drop your spare tire, but it's gonna make this a whole lot easier if you do because we're gonna be reusing the factory hardware that's already in your frame. So if you look right here on the frame, there's gonna be two bolt holes with bolts already in it, and the same thing over on this side. So this is gonna be a super easy install. We're gonna start off with a 21 millimeter socket. We're gonna take these out. Now, if you do have a diesel model, there will be some additional steps you'll need to fill out just because you're gonna have to drop your DEF tank just a bit. You won't fully pull it out, but you'll have to just kind of loosen it up so you can wiggle it around a bit to get some stuff through. Now, this isn't a diesel model, so I won't be able to show you that, but there are steps listed in the instructions if that's something you have to do. Alright, almost got this one out. And once you get these out you can kind of see they're pretty dirty. So I'm gonna take a wire brush and just clean out our weld nut in there a bit. But we'll take all four of these bolts out and clean 'em. If yours are real gummed up or rusty, you can also shoot a little bit of penetrating oil in there first and then run through with your brush. Just clean up those threads. An extra set of hands, we'll lift our hitch up into place and we'll reuse those mounting bolts that we had prior. We just took it out. Now when you're pushing this up, make sure that you get it in past the cover for our spare tire. So we're gonna lift right up past it and hit these factory mounting points. So we've got one started right now that's helping hold this up in place and I can get the other one in too. And once you snug these down, then we'll come back with the wrench, get the rest of the way. (socket whirring) Now with all four snugged down, we will come back with a torque wrench and we will tighten these down to the specifications listed in the instructions manual. Well, I think that does it for today's look at and installation of the TowSmart square tube Class III trailer hitch receiver here on our 2015 Dodge Durango. Please feel free to reach out to us via 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.