18x40 rucRak Recruit Cargo Carrier - 2" Hitches

Video Transcript for Test Fitting the rucRak 18x40 Recruit Cargo Carrier - 2024 Ford Bronco

Hi, I'm Matt with etrailer. Today we're gonna be talking about our rucRak Recruit cargo carrier on the back of our 2024 Ford Bronco. So let's check it out. Now, rucRak has a few different options they offer and the other one is gonna (indistinct) mount directly to your spare tire. Actually, I prefer that one over the one we have today just because it's gonna work a little bit better with our vehicle. One of the biggest downsides to this one is if we try to open up our hatch, we're gonna make contact with this.

Now this base is removable and you can actually add a wheel kit to it, but even with that said, we're always gonna make contact with these two tabs here. We still will be able to access our hatch area. So what I mean by that is if I open up the door, our tire's just gonna barely make contact there. And this is enough room. If you need to grab anything smaller, you'll be able to grab it pretty easy.

Anything like lawn chairs or a smaller tent, that shouldn't be an issue at all. But if that's not a big deal for you, because this is gonna be a great option if you like more so hitch mounted accessories, just 'cause this is gonna make it a little bit easier to take off if you ever need to. Reason being is something that's mounted to your spare tire can be a little bit of a hassle to remove, especially when you do need to replace your tires on there. And what's nice about this is it's still gonna be able to carry a decent amount, it's gonna have a weight capacity of 200 pounds. So you'll be able to fit a decent amount in here, especially if you do plan on using this for either some campsites or even plan on going to the beach.

Especially if you want to pair this up with the wheel kit. Now for how high you can stack that, it's really gonna be up to you since we're not already not gonna get hatch access. So really the limit's up to you unless you have some type of camera on the back of here. Typically it's gonna be mounted right here in the center. So if you wanna evade that, I'd recommend keeping it right at maybe 11 inches as the max just so you don't completely block that.

And you're gonna have plenty of points to really mount your gear to. And what I mean by that is if you have any type of straps or cables you wanna secure your items down to, there's gonna be plenty of these anchor points. Now we can really go into how far is this gonna sit away from your vehicle. So this will have five different points you can mount this to, and right now it's in the furthest point. So we have plenty of space from our tire, from the tire right now, that is gonna be sitting at a max of 26 inches. Now if you don't have a spare tire on here at the moment or yours is a different size, I'll actually measure from our bumper. Our bumper, that distance is gonna be about 37 inches. That's gonna take up a little more room. As for our ground clearance, that's gonna be a little bit of a different story. We are getting some pretty decent ground clearance and right now that's gonna be sitting at about 23 inches. So even if you're going up those really steep inclines, you shouldn't make contact with anything. Now we can save some space, and to do that, we're just gonna pull two pins at the bottom. There's gonna be one on each side, just like that. And then fold this up. Now this is gonna be held in place with some hand knobs. They're gonna go through this kinda support beam on the bottom and attach to the rear of the carrier. I'll grab into place and you just have another one for the other side. I also recommend just for some extra support is putting that pin back here up to the top gives me a little bit more peace of mind. Just watch your hand 'cause there is a sharper section next to that. And from here I can get a measurement to see how far away this is sitting. So from our tire we have today, that's gonna be roughly 15 inches. Now if we we inchesre to go from our back bumper, this is gonna sit at just about 26 inches. So that's gonna save a lot more space. As far as gonna interact on the back of our Bronco, it's gonna be okay. So in the position we have it right now, it's gonna block a decent amount, as far as when it comes to your backup camera. Now you could flip this whole carrier 180 degrees to have this opening right here. And honestly, you would be able to use most of your backup camera that way. We just keep in mind you will have to flip it, but it doesn't take very long. The other thing to think about is how it's gonna interact with your license plate. And really it's not gonna block it too much. You might get a little bit of this bottom corner blocking some of it, but for the most part it should be fine. And as for your taillights and back window, that will be obstructed. And the way this is gonna install is we're gonna have this two inch shank that goes into your two inch hitch receiver. We'll have a anti-rattle collar to help us out to make sure nothing's rattling here. And your kit will not come with a pin and safety clip. So you'll have to get that separately. You'll actually find one of these on our website. You also notice I have two more holes here. There's actually gonna be a total of five of them. They're all gonna be in one inch increments. So right now we have this in the furthest position, but if you want this closer to your vehicle, it saves some space, you can do that, and that'll save you about five inches at most. In my opinion, I think this is a pretty okay fit. The biggest thing for me is not having full access to the rear of my vehicle, which isn't a deal breaker, like I said earlier. If you plan on taking this on and off, not too bad, and with the other option, well it will attach to your spare tire and that's super nice, we're getting that full access. You can even leave it loaded. If you ever need to access that spare tire, then this might be a better option for you. But either way you go, it's just gonna depend on what your needs are. But again, this is just a look at the rucRak Recruit cargo carrier on the back of our 2024 Ford Bronco. I'm Matt. Thanks for watching.