Solid-Tow Adjustable 2-Ball Mount w Chrome Balls - 2" Hitch - 6" Drop, 7" Rise

Video Transcript for Fastway Solid-Tow Adjustable 2-Ball Mount Review

Randy: Hey guys, it's Randy here at etrailer.com. Now, if you've had a ball mount installed in your vehicle for very long you've probably heard the noise, the rattling and things like that that are generally associated with it. That can add a lot of aggravation. It can add not necessarily discomfort but when you hear it back there behind you always think something's loose on your truck. Basically what we're looking at today is meant to alleviate that. This is the solid tow from Fastway.

As you can see not only is it a very good looking aluminum ball mount, it's got that high polish, very nice looking. This one has chrome balls. Now you can get it with the two and two and five sixteenths inch like what we've got here today or the two and inch and seven eighths if you prefer it that way but take a look at that. There's no movement and there's no play.We've got a couple of screws, one here locks out the connection point here. Then the one on the front locks out the ball platform to the shank.

Now adjustable ball mounts are not that uncommon they come in many different shapes and sizes. The one thing that's pretty universal about all of them, they make a lot of noise. We've got not only the hitch or the ball mount where it goes into the hitch making noise and also where that platform meets the shank. Now this is going to be available in a two inch variety so for two inch by two inch receiver tube openings or in a two and a half inch version.It's important here that you pick the right one for your hitch opening size. All the two and a half inch hitches have the adapter that comes with them and that allows you to use a two inch product.

The way this is designed with that pin that pushes up though if we put this in our adapter well this is going to be secured to our adapter but our adapter's still going to have that movement in place so it's not all that effective. So be sure to pick the right size for your application and regardless of the lift on your truck or your SUV, or van, car for that matter.Now here you guys can really see the advantage of that adjustable ball mount. I really thought it was going to be a pretty straight situation. Really we're about three, four inches worth of drop on this to get it down where we need it. Having a nice level trailer like that with that adjustment allows us to keep equal pressure on both axles of our trailer or it keeps it from pitching down or pitching up in the front and overall having that like that and after towing with it for eight or nine miles now it seems like it's a really nice solid way to level everything out and keep it running properly.Now we also have several different rise and drop options available just depending on your truck, or your SUV, or your car and what you're going to need to match that up for your trailer.

Also, you have the option of going with a two inch ball and an inch and seven eighths or a two inch ball and a two and five sixteenths. Now the two inch and two and five sixteenths are definitely going to be the most common although there are still some inch and seven eighths couplers out there. So, I like that it's available. So, if you do have that inch and seven eight you can pick it up.Now, as far as weight ratings go they're all going to be rated for a thousand pounds worth of towing weight so we don't want to exceed that, the downward pressure we're putting on them. The inch and seven eighths ball has a 2000 pound gross trailer weight rating so that's the total weight of your trailer and anything you load up on top of it. The two inch is going to be 8,000 pounds, the two and five sixteenths that's going to be 10,000 pounds.Now, something I strongly recommend is buying a locking hitch pin for this. It's a very nice looking ball Mount and I guess technically somebody couldn't remove it without having that key to back it off but just to be safe you don't want it to disappear. If you decide that you're not going to lock it you will have to provide your own hitch pin and clips and definitely something to keep in mind. Now when working with customers I often get the question how far it is from the pin that comes up to make it nice and stable to the hitch pin holes and that's going to be two inches. So, we want to measure from the center of your hitch pin hole to the outermost edge of your receiver tube opening here. As long as it's two inches or more you're going to be in good shape.Now as far as the user experience with them, really heard nothing but good things about it. It takes all that noise out of the equation. We don't have to hear it rattling around. So whether it's just us cruising down the road or we have a truckload of people we're heading somewhere you're not going to feel like something's gone wrong or something's come loose.Now as far as asking customers how they like it, how they enjoy it, nothing but good is really said about it. On a few occasions if that pinhole was not in that two inch configuration, if it was a little bit further back I think the Toyota 4Runner you might run into that issue on. Of course it didn't work up to the expected potential and it's a valuable concern. So make sure you have that two inches but outside of that I often hear people say that they wish they had gotten it sooner. It's made their experience towing a lot better because you just don't have to worry about that noise or maybe that slight jolt you get from time to time when you take off, when you slow down, when you're turning. I think overall it's going to be a really nice product and the way it looks is certainly something you can be proud of.One I think that is very comparable to this in the quality and the manufacturing is the BMW Tow and Stow and we're going to take a look at a comparison between that and this. You're going to notice with that Tow and Stow we get a lot more noise, we get a lot more movement out of it up and down, side to side. It's just secured with a pin and a clip. So, I really like the fact that we can use a ball mount, keeping it in our vehicle, loading them and unloading them all the time can kind of be a hassle, and not have to worry about the aggravation we generally get with constantly hearing it rattling around behind us.Something else I really like about the shank design and the ball mount platform itself is that it's an all one piece billet aluminum. So essentially we don't have any wells, we don't have any cuts or anything like that that can stress and wear over time which we tend to see with steel. Now for the installation process we'll start with just the shank portion. We're going to line up that beveled hole. It's going to make it a little bit easier to get our pin in with the hole on our receiver tube opening here. Of course, we'll pin that into place.Now, for security I do recommend using a locking hitch pin. There's one by bolt that you can actually key to the ignition of your vehicle so you never lose it or we have many other types. We've got a nice etrailer screw type lock. So it's a big investment and I certainly recommend protecting it but once it's in there . Let's back this off a little bit. You can see that typical movement in play. As we travel down the road that's what we get and that's what we're going to eliminate using the solid tow. So, we'll take our hex key here, cam that over, and you can see all that's been eliminated. Now we can add on our ball mount platform.Now to set your ball mount properly essentially you want your trailer to be nice and level. You're going to measure to the bottom of the coupler then measure to the inside top edge of your receiver tube opening. Whatever that difference is that's what you want to accomplish. So if your couplers two inches low we'll set this to two inches of drop. If it's two inches high we can set it to two inches or rise, whatever your number may be.So, just take that around, slide it up in position. And we have alignment marks here so we want the top of that platform in the right position. So right here basically that's a zero drop configuration. One inch, we're going to set our stuff two. So put it right there and we'll use our set screw here on the front. That's going to go into one of those holes there. Get that nice and secure so we can come over to our safety lock screw. That's just going to prevent this one from backing out. So get that down till it makes contact, torque, and at that point we're ready to load up our trailer and hit the road. And that's going to complete our look at the Fastway line of solid two adjustable two ball mounts with chrome balls.