Video Transcript for DIY Install Roadmaster Crossbar-Style Base Plate Kit - 2026 Buick Encore GX

Hi, this is Scott with Etrailer, and today, we're taking a look at and installing our Roadmaster baseplate on our 2026 Buick Encore GX. We often get asked a lot of questions on what you're gonna need to get started on flat towing, and you're gonna have five main components that you're definitely going to need, and those components are gonna be a base plate, you're gonna need a tow bar, you're gonna need tow bar wiring, safety cables, and some type of supplementary braking system. Another thing to take a look at is, you may need a charge line kit. Our base plate we have on our Buick today is gonna be a good option for someone wanting to get into flat towing. This is gonna have a quick connect style hookup on the front of this, and that just means you're gonna push your ends in and give them a quick turn, and they're gonna lock into place, and then you can get everything else set up. Now this is a really high quality setup, and really heavy duty.

It's gonna hold up for a long time of heavy use of getting pulled down the road. Now this one has a lot of mounting points on it, and I like how it mounted up, because it's really heavy duty, and it's designed in the different plates that they have to add structural rigidity. As you can see here on our base plate, we have a crossbar style hookup on the front of this, and what this is gonna do for you is make it a little bit easier to pop this off, and you can pull off this whole bar completely, and after you do that, then you can turn your quick disconnects, and get those turned out and removed. So it just simplifies things a little bit. It really depends on what type of a tow bar you have, and what type of setup you have, or you plan to get.

Now this crossbar style is gonna be a really good matchup for our Roadmaster tow bar that we have installed today. Speaking of disconnecting this, we'll go ahead and do that now, and we'll show you how that works out. Just wanna get your safety cables off, and we'll undo our wiring. And we have air brakes on ours, so we'll undo our airline. Now we can undo our tow bar pins.

(Indistinct) those out. Set those aside. Now we have our crossbar. Let's undo the pins on both of those. Now we can just lift this up.

(metal scratching) Set our crossbar aside. Now we can undo our breakaway switch. And to get off our arms, we'll just pull our pin, give that a quarter turn. Now once I pull this one off, as you can see, it's got a really clean look with nothing attached to the front of it. Everything's hidden in behind really well, and it even tucks in, into our fascia a little bit here, so it really makes it not a whole lot noticeable. You are gonna see your safety chain loops coming out a little bit, that's about it. Now if you have any questions or comments about this Roadmaster base plate for your Buick Encore, you can always leave any questions or comments down below in the comment section, or you can get ahold of one of our experts here at Etrailer. They'd be glad to help you out. Now as far as installation goes, this one is a little bit tricky. You're gonna to have to remove the fascia, and there is some trimming and fitting, so this one can be a little bit tricky to do. Now if this is something you don't feel like doing yourself, or you just wanna get a whole setup done somewhere, you can always take a look at our installer locator and get something done for you locally. If this is something you feel like tackling yourself, stick around, watch our video, and we'll help you get it installed. To start our installation, we have the hood up on our Buick, and we're gonna have three T15 fasteners on each side of our vehicle we're gonna need to remove. (drill whirring) You're gonna have one right here in the middle, but that one is not attached. We're gonna skip that one, we're gonna jump over to this one, and then we're gonna have one right over here above our headline. (tool whirring) Over here on our passenger side, we're gonna have this little fastener that holds the washer fluid neck on, just wanna get under that with a click tool, or you can use a screwdriver. Pop up the center, get underneath of that, go ahead and pop that out. After we have that out, we're gonna twist our filler neck, pull, pop that out, and then we'll set that aside. Underneath of our vehicle, we're gonna have seven millimeter fasteners across the front we're gonna need to remove. I'm gonna start over here, back here on the skid plate, and just start popping those out. (tool whirring) Now we'll work our way across the front. For our next step, we wanna get our little splash seal out of the way. We're gonna have a plastic fastener back here. It's gonna be another one of those little clips. Just pop that out, get that set aside. Now we're gonna have a series of seven millimeter fasteners underneath of here. We'll get all those removed. (tool whirring) With all of our fasteners removed, we'll pull back, get that out of the way, and we'll set that aside. On each side, we're gonna have two T15 fasteners that's holding on our inner fender liner. We're gonna remove those on each side. Now, we pull down this flap. If we feel right behind here, we're gonna have two 13 millimeter bolts. Those are gonna be two of this frame stiffener that's behind here. Just use the 13 millimeter socket, and we'll get both of those removed. Now you may notice I do have some blue painter's tape on here. I like to do that on all of my seams where this is gonna be coming apart. That way, we don't end up scratching anything when we start pulling this apart. So now, on the inside of our fender well here, we're gonna have five T15 fasteners that run up the inside here. We're gonna go ahead and get those removed. Now, if it's easier for you, you may wanna turn your front tire inward, that's gonna give you a little more room. I have an angled attachment, and so it's gonna make it a little bit easier for me. We're just gonna go ahead and work our way up and remove all of those fasteners. (device buzzing) We're also gonna have this little plastic fastener in our fender well, and I just wanna pop that down as well. Just like we did our other ones, just go ahead and pull that down and out. With those out, we're gonna pull our inner fender out and away. That's gonna give us a little bit of room here. Let's kind of move that back. Now right up behind here, we're gonna have our light. As you can see here, we have a marker light. We're gonna have a little plug back in here that's really tricky to get at. You're gonna have a little red tab on that. You're gonna wanna pull that tab back, and then right behind that, you're gonna have a little clip. You're gonna wanna push down. As soon as I get that off, I'll show you that. As you can see here, now that I have this out, this part was really tricky to get at. You're gonna have this little red tab on here, and with that, you wanna pull that back, and then you're gonna have a little black tab behind that. You push down, and pull that out. Now we're gonna need to pull back this outer trim, because we need to get just past up here. We're gonna have a seven millimeter bolt behind here. So with that, this is gonna tab in just down here in the bottom. I'm gonna pop that out of its tab, then we can start working our way up. Now once we get to this point, we may have to use a clip tool to get behind here, because one of these clips is really on there. If you can get behind that, pop that out. Now we'll keep working our way up. Now right behind here, if we look on this other side, we're gonna have our seven millimeter screw back in here we're gonna need to remove. To hold our trim back, what I like to do is, I'll just wad up a piece of shop rag, and just stuff that just up behind there. That's gonna hold out my panel, so when we pull off our fascia, it'll be out of the way, and now all that gives me a little bit more room so I can get at this seven millimeter screw. I'm just gonna use a seven millimeter socket, and we'll go ahead and get that removed. Now we're gonna go ahead and get started on pulling off our fascia. Just wanna pop up underneath the front, 'cause there is a little tab under here on each side, and make sure we get up above that. Then we're gonna start on our edges, and we're just gonna start popping back, and we're gonna start working our way across the front. Get yours to break loose, all right. (fascia popping) And just pull straight back. It may fight you a little bit. Over on our passenger side, we're gonna have a wiring harness. Just wanna pull back on this red tab, push down on that. Well, we should be able to get that to remove. Go ahead and unplug that one. We're gonna have another plug on the other side we'll have to remove. Now this side's gonna be a little bit different. Again, to get this little red tab, I'm gonna use my angled pick and just push that back. We're gonna have a little tab just in front of that. We'll pop that loose, now we can set our fascia aside. On the front of our vehicle, we're gonna have this lower air dam. We're gonna have to get this removed. Now in our instructions, it gives us a diagram of what they want us to cut off, so we can do that. So I'm gonna just cut straight down, and then I'm gonna run back, being careful of the front of our radiator there. I'm just gonna use a reciprocating saw, and just go ahead and get that cut out. (saw buzzing) Underneath of that air dam, we're gonna have a little plastic clip. Just wanna push in on that, and push out. After we've got that done, we can just pull that out and set that aside. We will not be reusing this part. On the front of our inner cooler cap, we're gonna have this tab that sticks out. We're gonna wanna trim some of this out for clearance, so I'm just gonna carefully use my reciprocating saw and we're just gonna get that cut out. (saw buzzing) Now we'll do the same thing on the other side. We are gonna have a little bit more plastic here, but that's no big deal. We'll go ahead and get that trimmed out. (saw buzzing) On our driver's side, we're gonna have these two connectors for our computers that we need to unplug. To undo this connection, we wanna push down on these tabs and pull that towards you, and that's gonna release your plug there. Now to undo this connection, we wanna pull up our red tab, and then back here, you're gonna have a little black tab push in on that. Then you can rotate up. Now we can pull that out. For our computer box, we're gonna have our wire loom on here. Just wanna take our quick tool, pop that out. We're gonna have another one back here. Now we're gonna have two 10 millimeter nuts. We wanna go ahead and get those removed. (tool whirring) Going back up in here. Now this part might fight you. There is a little tab back here, so just kinda pull straight back if you can. If that don't work, you can always get behind there with your clip tool, and just get that popped off. Now we'll set this aside. On our passenger side, down here on our inner cooler, we're gonna have this plug in, and this is gonna be our air sensor. What we wanna do is pull back on that tab, push down on our gray tab, and unplug this, and set that aside for now. Now we're gonna disconnect our washer fluid bottle, and with that, we're just gonna unplug our hoses down here on the bottom. Now I will find some pieces of hose or something to plug these (indistinct) off. After I get this off, so now, we just wanna get these hoses up and out of the way. Get those unplugged. Those can be a little bit hard to pull. Just go ahead and pull that off. Now to undo our connector for our washer fluid pump, we're gonna pull up on that tab, push in, pull up. That can be a little tricky to get off. Now we'll just set our lines and everything off to the side. We're gonna have one more plug in for this one. Same thing, pull back on your red tab, push in on the gray tab just in front of that, and go ahead and unplug that. With everything disconnected, now we can start removing our washer fluid bottle, and we're gonna have three 10 millimeter fasteners that hold that in place. (tool whirring) We're gonna go ahead and start getting those removed. (tool whirring) And we're gonna have another one right up here. That's gonna be 10 millimeter as well. I like to use a ratcheting 10 millimeter wrench to go ahead and break that loose. And after you get it broken loose, a lot of times, you can go ahead and loosen that up with your fingers. With all the hardware off, we'll go ahead and remove our washer fluid bottle. Now we do have another little Christmas tree type clip up there. Pop that off, now we'll set our bottle aside. Now we're gonna start on our driver's side with our plates, and these are gonna be side specific. You can see right here, this one has a little notch. We're gonna be lining up this notch right here with the edge of this pinch weld on the front. So with that, we just wanna get that in place, and line that up with the edge of that pinch weld. Then we'll come back through with a paint pen or a marker, and we'll just mark our locations where we'll be drilling our holes. Now we'll follow that same procedure on our passenger side. With our holes marked, I like to come in with a pilot drill bit first, and then we'll come back through and step up our size. So now I'll go ahead and get my hole started with my drill bit. (drill whirring) On each side of our vehicle, we're gonna have four 15 millimeter bolts. We're gonna go ahead and remove those with a 15 millimeter socket. (drill buzzing and whirring) In your kit, we're gonna have four of these longer spacers. These are gonna go on the holes on the inside of our bumper beam, and the shorter ones, we're gonna save and use them on the outside. So make sure you separate those out. We're gonna have four of the longer and four of the shorter. And just make sure you divvy those up, and know which ones you're putting there. So with that, we're gonna take our longer spacers, and we're just gonna drop them into these holes here in our bumper beam for now, and we'll do that on both sides. One thing we wanna keep in mind now that we're gonna start dealing with our hardware, is we wanna make sure we're using some type of a thread locker red on these, and just make sure we get that on all of our hardware that we will be installing. At this point with an extra set of hands, we'll go ahead and get our base plate lifted into position. Now you may need to move these around a little bit just to get everything to line up, but you wanna make sure we're getting into our spacers. And we're gonna start with our inside holes first. And usually once you get one of them started, makes it a little bit easier to line up the others. Now make sure when we get these in place that you have a lock washer, a flat washer, and then leave these loose on this side on the inside, 'cause you need to be able to get your shorter spacers to fit into the side, and we're gonna follow our same procedure with our hardware, and then make sure you have red loctite on everything. Now we'll take our side plate, and we're gonna get that put in place. Now we're just gonna get this up against our pinch wheel, and back, and we're gonna line up all of our holes, and we'll get our hardware put in place. Now we have all our hardware in place just loosely, and everything's all set up. Now these are really tricky to get lined up. Yo may have to pry these around a little bit to get all your brackets to line up. Just kinda pry it around and make it fit, but you're gonna wanna start with these up here first, get these, and then you may need to get in this, one of these holes, get one of your bolts through, and then just, you'll be able to make it a little bit easier to get your bottom one in after you get one in up top. So now we're, what we're gonna do is just follow the same procedure on our other side. Now we did end up getting our lower bracket in place loosely. So now what we'll end up doing is we'll come back through, and start torquing down all of our hardware. I'm gonna start with these up here, and then I'll just start working my way down. Now keep an eye on your manual. You will have different torque specifications for our hardware, so just make sure you follow through with that when you do this. Now if you don't have a torque wrench, you can always pick one up here at Etrailer. We do have some options available for those, or you can take a look at your local auto parts store. You should be able to rent one there. (device beeping) In order to start getting our fascia put in place, we did pull our foam piece out of the back of our fascia. Now this is just basically gonna be a little bumper pad that's behind there. We do have marked out where we're gonna have to cut that to clearance for our base plate. So what I'm gonna do is, I'm just gonna go ahead and take my reciprocating cutting tool, and we're gonna go ahead and get those ends cut off. (tool buzzing) With those cut off, we'll go ahead and get this reinstalled in the back of our fascia. Now as we can see here, we have our base plate all set up. Now while you have this all opened up, it's a good idea to get everything else as far as your other accessories set up as well. So here, we have our breakaway switch all mounted up, and we routed our wiring back behind our base plate, and then over towards where we came up underneath of our hood. Now you can see here, we have our wiring set up, and we got that routed back, and I did tie that off, so when we put our fascia on, we'll be able to slide this in place, and we routed that back and then along the backside of our base plate as well, and then ram that up underneath of our hood. Now here you see our airline. Our airline is also gonna be run up underneath of our hood, so we got that in place as well, and just again, routed that behind our base plate, and then up into our engine compartment. At this point, what we wanna do is just get our fascia held up in place. That way we can mark out and figure out what we need to trim to get this all to fit. Now we'll come back through with our multi-cutter, and we'll start making our cuts. (cutter buzzing) What we'll do now after we have all of our trimming done is, we'll come back through with a file, kinda clean everything up a little bit, best you can, and then we'll come back through and get our fascia reinstalled. Now when you do that, make sure you get all of your electrical connections hooked back up, and everything back in place. That way, you don't have to pull your fascia back off for forgetting to plug something in. And that was a look at our Roadmaster base plate on our 2026 Buick Encore GX. I'm Scott with Etrailer, and thanks for watching.