Video Transcript for How to Install Your Trailer Mate Class III Trailer Hitch - 2021 Mazda CX-5

Hi, this is Scott with e-trailer. Today we're taking a look at and installing Trailer Mate Hitch on our 2021 Mazda CX-5. The Mazda CX-5 is a really popular and capable vehicle, but a lot of people like to add to the capability by adding a hitch. Our hitch we have on today is going to be a good option for people that want to haul some bike racks around or some cargo carriers. And with this one, it's going to be a hidden tube design, so all you're going to really see is your receiver hanging down. The rest of your hitch is going to be hidden up behind.

So all in all, this hitch really looks pretty good on our Mazda today. I really like the coating that it has on it. It's going to hold up for a long time to scratches and it's going to resist corrosion, so it's going to hold up for you for a long period of time. Our Trailer Mate hitch is going to have a five-eighths pinhole opening. That's gonna hold any of your accessories in that you put in the back.

Now, keep in mind, this hitch won't come with a pin and clip, so you may want to pick one up here at e-trailer. Other than that, a lot of your accessories may have an ex, a pin and clip with it, and a lot of your bike racks now will come with an anti-rattle hitch pin that will come with that. This hitch is gonna have heavy duty welded on chain loops. It's gonna accept either your S-style hooks or your Clevis style hooks. So if you plan on pulling any small trailers, that's gonna work out for you there.

As far as measurements go for our hitch, we're looking at from the center of our pinhole out to the edge of our bumper is gonna be right around three inches. With that measurement, you'll be able to decide on if you have any accessories that fold up or stow away will make any contact with the back of your vehicle. Now, from the upper inside lip of our receiver down to the ground, we are looking at right at about 13 inches. And that measurement will help you decide on if you need a ball mount, what size of a ball mount you may need, and it will also help you decide on if you need any rise of the shank of either your bike racks or your cargo carriers for clearance. As far as weights go for this hitch, we're looking at a tongue weight rating of 200 pounds.

That's gonna be the weight of either your bike racks or your cargo carriers loaded down with all of your gear pushing down on the lower portion of the hitch itself. Now, for a gross trailer weight rating, we're looking at 2,000 pounds. That's gonna be the weight of your trailer and everything that you have loaded on that. Now, keep in mind, it's always a good idea to take a look in your owner's manual and make sure you're not gonna exceed any of your maximum towing capabilities listed in there. If you have any questions or comments about this hitch for your CX-5, you could always leave a question or comment down below in the comment section, or you can get a hold of one of our experts here at e-trailer. They'd be glad to help you out. As far as installation goes, this one isn't too bad, but you will have to tuck the hitch up in there to get it in place, something you can definitely handle yourself. If you don't have the time or the tools or the place to do it, you can always take a look at our dealer locator or get something done for you locally. If it's something you want to tackle yourself, stick around, watch our video, and we'll help you get it installed. To start our installation, we're gonna have this little panel right here behind our bumper fascia, and we're gonna have two little push clips in there. Just wanna take a flat end head screwdriver, and we're just gonna get those popped out. And those should pull right out for you. Now, we can remove this little panel. It's gonna pop in there with little clips as well. And just pull down on that, pop that out, and we'll set that aside. What we're gonna need to do next is lower our exhaust to give us a little room to get our hitch in place. So we're gonna have four isolators. We're gonna have two on each side. We're gonna need to pop off. We're gonna have two on this side and two over here on our driver's side. So what I wanna do is take a cam buckle strap, and I'm gonna support our exhaust with my strap. So that way, when I break those loose, we're not gonna damage anything upstream on our exhaust. That's gonna allow me to raise and lower it a little bit easier. With that in place, pull that tight. Now we can remove our isolators. For our isolators, to get these off a little bit easier, I like to take a little bit of soapy water. I just have some dish soap and water, and what I do is I'll pull down on my exhaust a little bit and spray a little bit of that water up in there on both sides of my isolator. We'll do that on all of these. Now, I'm gonna use isolator pliers to get these off of here. You can use a pry bar or whatever you have. But the main goal is to just get those off the end, and just rotate them up out of the way. With our isolators removed, I just wanna hold up on my exhaust, and now I'll let off my cam buckle strap a little bit, and that's gonna bring it down carefully. Now, underneath of our frame, we're gonna have this kind of a rubberized coating here that goes around our access hole. You can use a putty knife or a wide screwdriver or something like that to just scrape this off. What I'm gonna do is use my oscillating cutting tool, and I'm just gonna go ahead and get all of that off of there. I like to get all of it off the bottom flat and off the sides and a little bit towards the back here. (oscillating cutting tool oscillating) Now, you may end up with some scratches and bare metal up in here, so what I like to do is come back through with a little spray paint and just get some paint on that, and that'll protect it. Now, on the side of our frame on both sides where our hitch is gonna mount up, we're gonna have this little sticker here in the front. You're gonna have one here. You just wanna scrape that. Sometimes if you pop a hole in it, you can go ahead and get a lot of that out of the way. You can just pull on that and get that out. Just wanna get access to that hole right there. Now, the one in the back, you're gonna have another sticker right back here. It's kinda hard to see if it's painted over, but same thing with this one. This one's gonna have a weld nut on the inside of that. That's where our bolt's gonna screw into, so we wanna get the sticker out of the way on those. Now, anywhere you see any more of this rubberized sealant, we wanna get that out of the way as well. Just take a screwdriver and just run up that, and just get that out of the way. It's gonna allow our hitch to lay flat against our frame. Once we have that out of the way, we're gonna go right here and we're gonna have this little plastic tab that's kinda like an electrical connection holder. It's gonna take our clip tool, or you can take your screwdriver, get under that. We'll pop that out, move that out of the way as well. Now, for our hardware and our kit, what we're gonna do is we're gonna end up fishing in this set of hardware, and in our kit, we're gonna have our carriage bolt, and we're gonna have our spacer block and our fish wire. So what we wanna do on the backside of our frame, we're gonna have an open hole that does not have a weld nut in it. So we're gonna take our wire that comes in our kit and just put a little bit of a bend in it, and we're gonna go through our hole where our hardware's gonna come through, and then come down through our access hole in the bottom of our frame. Now we'll take our spacer block, run that up on our coiled end of our wire, and then we'll thread on our carriage bolt. We just wanna run that up to where it stops, where the edge of our fish wire comes up. Now we'll take our spacer block, push that up into our frame, followed by our carriage bolt. Just pull that through. Now you can see we can pull that through here, but for now, we're just gonna leave that push down into our frame. Leave that in there, and we'll have our fish wire hang out, and we'll put this in our respective hole on our hitch when we get it pulled up into position. We're gonna follow the same procedure on the other side of our frame. Now, unfortunately, your kit's only gonna come with one fish wire, so there's a couple different ways you can do that. You can pick one of these up, or you can get the hardware started on the other side and carefully remove your fish wire, and then you'll have to go up through your frame, and then up and through your hitch itself once you get everything on the one side put in place. For the rest of our hardware, we're gonna have our flange nut. This is gonna go on our carriage bolt, and then we have our other hardware here, which is gonna be our bolt, and then we're gonna have our conical tooth washer. This is gonna go on our weld nut that's towards the front. Now, with these, you wanna make sure when you get your hardware set up, that your teeth on your conical tooth washer are going to be facing the hitch. Now, with an extra set of hands, Jonathan's gonna help me out lifting our hitch in place. What we wanna do is take our wire and run that on the inside of our hitch, and as we. This part going to be a little tricky, getting our hitch maneuvered under our bumper. Just gonna get it up over our exhaust. This can be a pretty tight fit, so you may have to pull back on your fascia just a little bit, fit into position, and then get it to come in behind your fascia. Now you wanna pull your wire as you're lifting your hitch up, and you're just gonna pull your carriage bolt, through your rear most hole, and you wanna be careful not to mess up, your pull wire if you're going to be reusing it. Now we'll just take our flange nut and get that started. Once we have that on both sides, we can go ahead and start our hardware in the front. (engine roaring) Now, for our hardware towards the front, we're just gonna take our bolt with our conical tooth washer and just get that started. (engine roaring) You may need to move your hitch around just a little bit to get that started, but we just wanna get that run in finger tight. Now, once we have that started, just thread that down by hand as far as you can. Now, after we have all of our hardware in place, we'll come back through with either a 19 millimeter or a three-quarter inch socket, and we'll get these snugged out. (three-quarter inch socket spinning) After all of our hardware's snugged down, we'll come back through with our torque wrench and torque down all of our hardware to the specifications listed in our instruction manual. Now, if you don't have a torque wrench, you can always pick one up here at etrailer. We do have options available, or you can take a look at your local auto parts store. You should be able to rent one there. (beeping) After everything's torqued down, we'll come back through and we'll get our exhaust put back in place. And a nice little tip to get it back in place is go ahead and spray down your pins and your isolators with your soapy water. That's gonna help everything get put back in place. Now, what we'll do is we'll go ahead and get, our cam buckle strap out of the way. With that all done, that'll do it for our look at our Trailer Mate Hitch on our 2021 Mazda CX-5. I'm Scott with e-trailer, and thanks for watching.