Video Transcript for How to Install the etrailer Class III Trailer Hitch - 2025 Hyundai Santa Cruz

Hello, neighbors, it's Brad here at etrailer, and today we're taking a look at installing the etrailer trailer hitch receiver on a 2025 Hyundai Santa Cruz. Now the Santa Cruz is a neat little vehicle. You know, a lot of times people say it's not a real truck, but really it checks a ton of different boxes, whether you're throwing stuff in the back but still need to move people around, I really like the idea of what the Santa Cruz brings. And to add on to what it can do, putting a hitch on here is really gonna open it up as far as what you can do and what adventures you can go on. And that's gonna include being able to put a bike rack, a cargo carrier, or even pull a trailer with your Santa Cruz. So the etrailer is one of my personal favorites for this vehicle.

So let's take a closer look at it. When your hitch is installed, it really gives you a clean look overall. The only portion that you're gonna see besides the receiver tube opening and the safety chain loop is this small section where the bumper goes up. But unless you're really looking for it, it's a really clean install. Most of the cross tube is hidden.

And this is a really nice hitch because it's a two inch by two inch receiver tube opening, and that's really the standard when it comes to a lot of accessories. Most vehicles will have a two inch by two inch. And so that means when it comes time to find a bike rack, a cargo carrier ball mount, you'll have tons of options available. Now, all of them are gonna stay in place with a 5/8 pin and clip. This does not come with the hitch, but a lot of times when you get accessories brand new, they'll have those pin and clip included.

If you plan on leaving your accessory on the back of your vehicle, you might wanna take a look at a locking pin and clip. That's a really good deterrent for anyone that's just walking by that sees your accessories, and it makes it to where they can't just pull out that pin and clip and take those accessories with them. Now one of the things that really makes the etrailer hitch my favorite, it's not because of the name, I promise you that, it's because of the finish that we use. It's a carbide black, and so it gives it more of a matte finish, and I feel like it matches plastics of vehicles very well. It's not a gloss black.

And it's twofold because this really does hold up better to chips and scratches long term. I handle a lot of different brands of hitches, and, I mean, consistently, this is always the best looking and holding up to chips and scratches even in just transit. So that is something that is important. Now something else we'll notice is the rolled style safety chain loop there. That's for if you plan on pulling a trailer, you can hook up your safety chains, standard S-hook, it's gonna be no problem. The same goes for a larger clevis style. And speaking of towing, if you do plan on pulling a trailer, you're gonna want to adhere to the weight capacities of not only the hitch but also your vehicle. So the hitch is rated at 5,000 pounds of gross trailer weight rating, which is the weight of the trailer, plus the accessories loaded onto it. But that's not to say that the vehicle can actually tow that much. So take a look at the vehicle's owner's manual, see what it's capable of towing, compare that with the hitch, as well as the ball mount and ball that you'll be using, and take the lowest number. That way you don't overload anything. Tongue weight's really impressive on this. It's got 750 pounds, which is gonna be the downward pressure on the inside of the receiver tube opening, and that's really gonna account for a lot of your suspended accessories. So what does that mean to you Well, with 750 pounds, that is gonna be a four-bike bike rack loaded up, probably won't even come to that 750, or a cargo carrier on vacation completely loaded up, probably won't go over that. So with that high of a tongue weight rating, you're really gonna have a lot of options to be able to utilize this for those suspended accessories. Now, a lot of bike racks and cargo carriers, you can get in a configuration that will tilt up, and that really reduces the entire length of the vehicle in that stowed position. So it is nice. You wanna make sure that it's gonna be able to work with this vehicle. So measuring from the center of our hitch pin hole to the furthest point, we're looking about 3 1/4 inches. So I really don't worry that you're gonna have any issues with them not being able to fold up. But something to keep in mind, when you do have those in that vertical position, you're gonna be blocking your license plate, your backup camera, you're probably gonna have to lower down your accessory to gain access to your bed. And sometimes it can even block your taillights. So just keep that in mind when you have those accessories stowed. You may wanna look at a lighting kit. It's really up to you. Now, something else that's really gonna be important if you plan on pulling a trailer is gonna be our ground clearance. And measuring from the top of the receiver tube opening to the ground, this comes in at 14 inches, so I'm not worried about the ground clearance of the hitch. It really comes down to making sure that you get the proper riser drop on that ball mount to get your trailer level. And the best way to do that is get your trailer and put it on level ground, get it as level as possible, measure from the ground to the top of the receiver tube opening, and then compare that with this measurement. And do a little bit of math, then you'll be able to determine that riser drop necessary. You can always get it in adjustable ball mount to account for that. But if you are looking for a fixed ball mount and you use a trailer consistently, that's a good way to figure it out. Now, chances are you're watching this video because you want to see how it installs and maybe deciphering whether or not you want to tackle this yourself. And I'm here to tell you, this one's actually pretty easy to do. Really, it comes down to lowering your spare tire. You're gonna lower down your muffler just off the isolators. And then from there, it truly does just bolt up into the frame. There's gonna be weld nuts there. It does get a little bit tricky as far as getting the hardware tightened and torqued on our passenger's side. And that's something else that I'll mention. You're gonna want a torque wrench to be able to torque that hardware down properly, a 19 millimeter socket and a pry bar to get the exhaust down. And really, that's about it. So it's a super, super easy install. You could do this in your driveway or garage, give yourself a little bit over an hour, and you might want an extra set of hands to raise the hitch up and get the hardware started. So if you're doing this yourself, I'll walk you through step-by-step so you can get your hitch installed. But if you watch the video and maybe decide, "I don't have the place, the time, the tools, or even the want to do it," don't let that stop you from getting a hitch on your Santa Cruz. It's well worth it. And so to take care of that for you, you can reach out to someone using our dealer locator to find someone close to you that can get that hitch installed, and you could be on the road, heading out to your adventures in no time. So if you want to decide whether it's not for you or you're gonna be installing it yourself, let's take a look at that installation right now. To get our installation rolling, we're gonna want to get our our spare tire lowered down. And if you've never done that on your Santa Cruz, that's a good thing. You haven't had a flat. But I'm gonna show you where the tools are to gain access to be able to lower that down. And all of that's gonna take place back in our bumper. That's where we have our hoist that, you know, holds that tire up. But the tools necessary, they're gonna be located in the back seat. So I'll show you exactly where they're at. So if you raise up the back seat on the passenger's side, you're gonna find that you have a spare tire tool for your lug nuts, but also the extension that has a small hex, and that's what we're gonna be using to lower down our tire. The circular cap that we have via our license plate, we're gonna take a flathead screwdriver and open this up, just counterclockwise. And then with our tool combination, we have this extension, we're gonna put the smaller end. You should be able to get this to drop on the hex. If not, you can reach behind here and just guide that on. And then from here, we'll put our tire lug nut remover, I guess, wrench here, and we're just gonna be lowering this down. (metal clacking) Now we need to get a few things out of the way so our hitch can bolt up to the frame rails. And the first one we're gonna tackle is gonna be our muffler. So the holes that we're gonna be using in the frame are above it and below it. So getting the hardware in and tighten down is gonna be tricky with the muffler in the way. So to get this lowered down, I t's actually pretty easy. We're gonna be tackling three different isolators. We have one at the front, there's one in the back corner, and then one right on the crossmember. And what we want to do as we remove these is support our exhaust. We don't want to have it hanging down. It can cause damage upstream. So if you're doing this on the ground or in your driveway, you can use the box that the hitch came in or a block of wood, just to kind of keep support on that as we lower it. So, being on a lift, I'm gonna use a cam buckle strap here. This is gonna create a nice cradle, and again, just support that exhaust as we lower it down. Now the isolators can get tricky over time. They're gonna want to kind of fuse up and just not want to pop off easily. So if that's the case for you, a little soapy water or spray silicone goes a long way to lubricate it, make it a lot easier. And to get this front one off, just take a pry bar or a long flathead screwdriver, use this portion to pry, and then we can pop that off. Our back one here, a little tricky to get to, but you can use the hanger as leverage. So we're just gonna pry this off and then we'll head to our crossmember. And once you pop this, just know that the exhaust is gonna wanna lower down. So, here, it's kind of free-holding. I have my strap, you know, supporting this here. So that opens up our passenger's side. On the driver's side, it's actually fairly open, but you'll see that we do have this wiring that is gonna probably be in the way. So we're gonna wanna remove the plastic clip, the one on the bottom here, as well as the one that we have a little bit higher up. And the best way to do that is using a trim panel tool. So pull down, try to get a gap underneath that. If not, you can just use this to pop out. If you don't have a trim panel tool, these are really handy. But generally, a flathead screwdriver's also gonna be a okay option for this. We're gonna wanna pull this back, that way we have clear access to these holes. Before we get our hitch raised up, something that we wanna do is double-check to make sure that our threads are going to be able to have our hardware passed in. So this is a newer vehicle, so there's no rust or corrosion built up, but living in the rust belt, a lot of vehicles with this style, you can get that corrosion buildup, and that makes it really difficult to get the hardware started. Now, ours, I can feed in by hand. And if that's the case for you or you can at least get quite a few threads started, you should be okay. But if you run into a situation where it's just not wanting to thread in, what you might wanna do is soak it with some penetrating oil and using the tube brush. It's a good way to just kind of clean that out. A worst case scenario, you may have to get a tap with similar threads to run that through. Hopefully, that's not the case for you. So if yours all feeds in well, at this point, you're gonna grab all of your hardware and an extra set of hands to get this hitch raised up. So I have Tom into helping me here, but what we're gonna do is have our bolt and our conical tooth washer set up one on each side, 'cause we want to get one started at least a few threads. That way it'll support the hitch, making it easier to get the rest of the hardware in. So we'll raise this up. And you can put the bolt in the bottom or into the side of the frame, whatever's easiest for you. The bottom might be the easiest. So just align that hole, get a few threads started here. And then once you have one started on each side, that's gonna support that hitch. And then we'll get the remaining hardware in the other spot. So one on the bottom, and then there's two that go on the inside frame rail. (metal clacking) Now once you have all of them started just a few threads, we're gonna snug this up, and I would recommend starting at the bottom. It'll draw it up, allowing those side bolts to go in a little bit easier without any rubbing against the hitch. And it's gonna be a 19 millimeter socket to snug these down. (drill whirring) Now you don't need to get too crazy, just snug it, because we're gonna come back with our torque wrench to get them properly torqued. Now, something I'll mention is when we get over to the passenger's side, it is gonna be a little tighter. (drill whirring) Now just the nature of how this lower braces is, it's fairly wide, so it makes a kind of a small pocket to get tools in to tighten those. So what I've found is an extension or a swivel, an extension with that socket probably is gonna be our best way to snug this down. Now when it comes time to torquing it down, we'll have to use a special tool as well. But for now I'll get this snug down. (drill whirring) Now, for all of the hardware that's easily accessible, you'll be able to get that torque wrench and the 19 millimeter socket on there. The torque settings are found in the instruction manual. And we're gonna go through and get these torque down properly. And this is really important, especially with weld nuts, you can over-tighten it, causing damage to them. So this torque wrench will really make sure that we have it properly torqued down. If you don't have one, you can generally go to an auto parts store and rent one for free. But this is gonna be important for all of these bolts. So I'll get these ones torqued down. And then as I mentioned, that tighter area on the passenger's side may have to get a little bit creative, but we'll see what I can come up with. Now, to get to those and torque them down properly, you got really two options. The way we tightened it down previous was with that extension and a swivel. I try not to use that combo with a torque wrench. It can skew that torque setting a little bit. So the best way to do it is gonna be a crow's foot attachment. This will attach onto our torque wrench. And we'll have to rotate this quite a few times to get it snug. It's still gonna be kind of tight. The downside with these is once you start to get to higher torque, sometimes these can open up. So if you can find a crows foot attachment that's a box end, it's probably gonna be a better option to not bust your knuckles as you do this. For our application, I am gonna use our swivel and extension. The main thing is is we're still gonna get our torque setting. Just make sure that it is properly torque. And, you know, you may have to give it an extra bump here and there, but we're gonna be pretty dang close. (metal clacking) Once you get all that hardware torqued down, you've officially installed your hitch on your Santa Cruz. So just make sure you get your exhaust isolators put back in place, your spare tire up. One of the plastic clips on our wiring harness that we lowered down, you can pop that back in, the other one is blocked, but it's gonna hold it up just fine. So once you get spare tire and exhaust and everything put back in place, you're gonna load up your accessories, put in your pin and clip, and you're ready to hit the road. Hopefully, this video helped you get your hitch installed on your Santa Cruz. I think you're gonna be really happy with it. And during the process, if you come up with any tips or tricks, or, you know, everything went well, let us know. Those comments really help us for the next line of videos to make sure that they are gonna be the best for neighbors like you to make the installation as easy as possible. And also, we wanna see what you're doing with the hitch. Are you pulling a trailer Are you using a bike rack or a cargo carrier on your adventures Snap some pictures and feel free to share it with us. We love to see our products and neighbors out there enjoying life and going on those adventures. My name's Brad. Thanks for watching this install on the etrailer trailer hitch receiver on a 2025 Hyundai Santa Cruz.