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Fully welded vehicle trailer hitch is strong and durable. Draw-Tite's Tested Tough guarantee ensures that this hitch exceeds industry standards. The combination of an E-coat base and a powder coat finish provides excellent rust protection.
Features:
Specs:
Draw-Tite's Tested Tough program provides testing standards far superior to those outlined by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), the go-to source for engineering professionals.
Each Draw-Tite trailer hitch receiver undergoes extensive fatigue testing and static testing with the ball mount that is either supplied or recommended for use with that particular hitch, thus ensuring results that are applicable to real life use. Fatigue testing is also conducted on hitches rated for use with weight-distribution systems.
In addition, Draw-Tite performs static testing on a simulated automobile, as opposed to the rigid fixture used for SAE testing, resulting in a more true-to-life scenario.
At etrailer.com we're committed to the products we sell, and to our customers. Our experienced and knowledgeable staff are available via both phone and email to address your questions and concerns for the lifetime of your hitch. The technicians at etrailer perform hitch installations on a daily basis, making them a valuable resource for do-it-yourselfers. The one-on-one, personal service you'll receive comes straight from an expert in the towing and automotive field. We've installed it, we've wired it and we've towed with it, so whatever your question, we can answer it.
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This hitch fit exactly the way the etrailer video said it would. The whole install took me a little over an hour as I have no lift and had to work off the ground. Hidden Hitch has a great reputation and now I know why. This unit was made just for this Escape and the fit was to a "T". The customer service at etrailer was fantastic. I will use this hitch for my bike rack. I will be getting the trailer light wiring kit at a later date for towing.
Hitch was bent in shipping. I had to use a rubber mallet and a lot of swings but got it close enough that I was able to install. If hitch wasn't damaged it would have been very quick and easy to install. As with all Hidden hitches I've owned it looks great and will provide safe towing.
This is my 2nd Hidden Hitch. Basically a solid rugged product. Had one annoying problem. One of the nuts (no extras supplied) had not been threaded all the way through. This cost me a fifty mile round trip, use of a free lift, and the loss of the day, plus another 18 mile round trip to a hardware store to get a replacement nut. The hardware store owner was outspokenly dismayed that the nut/bolt combo were plain steel, not hardened, not galvanized, & not stainless. The entire strength of that hitch depends on the integrity of that nut and bolt. Good idea to UPGRADE???
The installation went as planned. The wire feeders for pulling the bolts up thru the chassis worked great.
The main flanges were not quite parallel. The fwd portion had to be spread apart, pulling quite hard to fit over the chassis tubes. The aft portion slid up easily.
They also supply what looks to be a convenient place to attach a 7 prong trailer plug. UNFORTUNATELY it extends under the hands free sensor limiting even more the points of access to activate the lift gate. Hidden Hitch should either eliminate this bracket or locate it elsewhere. I plan on only using a 4 prong trailer plug as I expect MOST Escape owners will.
Very Happy with my Hidden Hitch purchase from E-Trailer, The website was very easy to find what I needed, e-trailer shipped the hitch very fast. the install time was 25 minutes and it looks great! I will make E-Trailer my go to place for my future products
Thanks again
Pete DeGroot.
Hidden Hitch is a great hitch, had it installed in 40 minutes. Looks great on my new Escape. Using it for carrying bear and deer.
The Hidden Hitch was delivered super fast, and was just as described in the video. I installed it by myself in about an hour and a half. Worked off the garage floor and didn't have to use any jacks. Would go much faster with an extra set of hands. Video was a great help.
the hitch came with the wrong mounting hardware. The nuts and bolts were different sizes and the cams were missing. I had to go to a hitch shop and buy some to install the hitch. The hitch also had sharp shards of welding slag near all weld joints. I'm not impressed with hidden hitch.
The product arrived when I thought it would. Two parts of the hitch had poked through the carton, the same part on both sides. They need to put some foam or double up cardboard or something on the parts that poked through. Other than that all hardware was there and worked. I had a friend help me. It would have been very difficult without his help. The hitch fits great and I'm very pleased with the whole process. I recommend etrailer and hidden hitch.
I purchased the wiring harness in conjunction with the Hidden Hitch. We installed the hitch in less than an hour. No issues. Have not had time to install the wiring harness yet. The products arrived quickly and well packaged. My dealings with etrailer.com have always been positive and it is a pleasure to do business with them. They have great customer service and are very knowledgeable about their products. This is not my first purchase from them and if I need anything else for towing, I will be back.
I wish that I could give this hitch a higher rating, but unfortunately this wasn't the easiest of purchases due to problems caused by the manufacturer. The hitch was shipped out and received quicker than I expected but was missing the spacers needed to lock the bolts in place for installation. Additionally several areas along the rails had large areas of paint chipped off, but were easily fixed with spray paint. etrailer customer support was great in contacting the manufacture and arranging for the missing parts to be shipped out. The problem with this is that after waiting a week for these parts, the manufacturer's warehouse workers mis-read the order and shipped out all of the mounting hardware again, except for the spacers I was missing in the first place. After a second call to customer support they seemed to get the point across to the manufacture of the issue and the missing spacers were received the next day through an overnight shipment. At the end of the day, the hitch looks great and the hands free operation of the rear power gate still works as promised. 5 stars to etrailer, but 4 to hidden hitch because of the missing parts!
The only thing I can think of that would have made this transaction better is if you installed it for me when it arrived by UPS. Thank you very much.
Great instructions and easy install. The hitch looks great on my new Escape!!
The trailer hitch for my 2013 Ford Escape SEL was installed by myself but not without challenges. First off the good news is that all the holes of the trailer hitch matched up perfectly with the 2013 Escape frame. Also all the wiring lengths and connectors matched up perfectly with the 2013 Escape. I would highly recommend installing the wiring harness first and the trailer hitch second. I did it the other way around and the presence of the hitch made routing the wiring much more challenging.
Now for the challenging part. A lot of the following comments won't make a lot of sense unless you are actually installing a trailer hitch and are reading the enclosed instructions. On the wire harness side the instructions call for removing for 8mm screws on each side of the lifted rear tail gate to remove the rear light assemblies. What the instructions don't tell you is that two of the screws on each side are located under plastic cosmetic covers the size of a quarter. You have to carefully pry these covers off with a small flat bladed screw driver. Next, the routing of the tail light connector wiring assemblies up from underneath the rear of the Escape is very challenging. I found I had to use the long, black #12 wire supplied for connection to the battery to "pull" the connector assemble up to the tail light area on both sides. I first threaded the black wire down from the tail light assemblies and then looped and taped it to one on the cable connectors. Pulling up the cable connectors was challenging since there is very little space especially near the tail lights. I had to pull the Escape side panel out with a lot of effort to make enough room for the connectors. Once the connector were through and in the tail light area there was plenty of room for the wiring and connectors. These comments apply to both tail gate areas.
Attaching the white ground wire to the car was a challenge. I first attached it to a sheet metal bracket that hold the bumper on. Bad idea...when I tested the completed assembly it didn't work and the problem turned out to be no ground connection. I went against the instructions and drilled a tap hole in the car frame square beam on the rear drivers side and attached the ground wire there...presto...everything then worked.
The last wiring harness challenge concerned routing the black wire from the battery compartment to the trailer wiring harness module on the drivers side rear. First off...it took me ten minutes to find the battery! The Escape engine compartment is really packed tight and it turns out the battery is stashed back against the firewall and has a plastic snap off cover that completely hides the battery and the cover is not labeled "battery"! Once I found the battery accessing the positive (+) terminal was easy. Routing the black wire from the battery throughout the engine compartment was very challenging. I had to use a stick from underneath the Escape to "catch" the black wire and pull it through. Once the black wire was through routing it (and tie wrapping it) to the undercarriage along the drivers side door was straight forward.
Installing the trailer hitch frame had it's challenges as well. I found it easiest to thread the pull wires from the bolt hole end to the access hole on the Escape frame. I put the coiled spring end of the pull wire through the bolt hole first and used needle nosed plyers to "catch" it at the access hole. My biggest challenge was the supplied mounting bolt heads were too large to get through the access holes. I had to use my grinding wheel to shave off a sixteenth of an inch off the bolt heads (resulting in a small flat area) to get the bolts to feed through the access holes. Once I did this the bolts and brackets fed through to the mounting holes pretty easily. In order to work easily under the rear of the Escape I found I had to raise the rear wheels up six inches (I made a ramp of wood 2"x8"s stacked on each other.). Since I was working alone I used wood blocks to hold up the trailer hitch frame near it's final mounting position. Once I had a mounting bolt through a hitch mounting hole and before removing the pull wire from the bolt I took a piece of 1/4" by 6" long piece of duct tape and wrapped it around the mounting bolt and attached the ends to the hitch frame to prevent the bolt falling back into the Escape frame when I removed the pull wire from the mounting bolt. Once the first bolt was secured with a nut it was easy to move the hitch frame into position for securing the other three bolts. Hint: don't tighten any bolts until all bolts are secured.
I could now do a second 2013 Escape trailer hitch in half the time...but I won't be doing that. Hopefully my experience will make your experience easier.
Hi Joshua. I am 65 years old and was able to install the hitch by myself in about 1 hour and 30 minutes. We're ready to haul bicycles!
A fine product, I had it installed in under an hour and a half. It fit perfectly and looks great! I needed this hitch for a rack to carry a heavy electric bike and I am now able to easily transport to other locations for some great rides.
I have to admit, I was skeptical at first about buying a custom trailer hitch for my Ford Escape (Titanium 2015) because I knew it had to be a tricky design in order to accommodate the hands-free rear latch sensors underneath the rear bumper of the car.
But I saw some good reviews online about etrailer.com so figured I would give them a shot. The result: awesome. The hitch is extremely well designed and well-built. It attaches directly to the frame of the car and, once installed, feels like it's part of the frame. As you can see from the photos, it's also very inconspicuous and looks as if it was designed by Ford specifically to put on this vehicle. I've used the hitch countless times and it always feels solid as a rock.
BTW, I am the opposite of mechanically inclined, but was able to install the hitch myself following very clear, detailed instructions provided by etrailer.com with the hitch. I did need an assist from my son a couple of times to hold the hitch as I inserted bolts, but I saved a bunch of money not having to ask my dealer or someone else to install it.
For any Ford Escape owner who has rear sensors for the hands-free hatch release, this hitch is the one you want... an A+ across the board.
Craig
1/31/2018
Love the hitch and use it all the time. Works like a charm and have never had any problems.
Nice hitch. Fast shipment. If you are not handy, pay someone to install it. If you do install it, have someone help you.
I had an issue, and called customer service. I spoke with Tammie whom really helped me out.
I purchased this hitch to pull a yard trailer, and it is definitely built to do the job.
I would definitely recommend this hitch company, and will definitely buy from them again.
John V.
7/4/2020
After 1 year, the hitch looks as new as the day I installed it. I rechecked my bolts, and they are still tight. I have probably pulled my yard trailer 20 times in the past year, and had no issues. I have since purchased a bike rack that slides into the hitch flawlessly. Again, I will definitely buy from etrailer again.
So far great for my carrier . I should have ordered wiring kit also , However watching the video the hitch receiver was an easy install the wiring looks more difficult. Thanks hitch is great better than carrying gas cans and diesel cans inside .
Phil
4/16/2022
Works great still need buy wiring 4 pin I use to haul gas or propane bottles with tie downs works great no gas smell in my escape .
i installed hitch by myself. it took me about 45 mins. I first widened the holes in the frame in order to fit the bolts threw. then I hung one side of the hitch by just by using the bolt and placing them into the holes, then i did the same on the other side. now that i had the hitch temporarily up i removed one of the bolts and fished it threw the frame. i did each one like this till i was done.
Gotmook
10/30/2017
Been great I have towed a kumatsu excavator 3 times with no problems. Still looks great.
Perfect fit! Directions combined with the on-line video make this a very straight forward install. Only thing keeping it from a 5 star review was the way it was packed for shipping. While I understand that it is heavy and awkward in shape it could have been a little better protected. It came with the 4 mounting corners exposed and ripped though the plastic wrap and the black paint chipped. It was not bent at all and 100 percent functional. As this is under the car and I expect scratches from road debris but a little more shipping protection would have been nice.
Kevin
5/14/2019
I no longer have the vehicle as I traded it in for something bigger but during the time I had it everything worked flawlessly. It was used multiple times for various things the longest trip I think was VA to Wi and back. etrailer will be my first stop if I never need to add a hitch to my current or future vehicles.
Excellent product, easy to install and all the right hardware to make it go smoothly. Easy video instruction helped a lot. Shipping was fast customer support is great. FYI I installed the hitch by myself no help in about an 1-1/2 but I'm 70 years old. So anyone can do this it's that easy.
David
4/24/2020
Working great. Awesome hitch
Delivery was quick and well packaged. Watched the videos on installing and it went smoothly.
Etrailer communication was outstanding.
MuchEasier than I thought.... I installed the hitch in my driveway within 45 minutes. There is no need to remove the muffler! Hitch fit perfectly. It would have been a little easier with two sets if hands. Customer service was outstanding and the online video was a great help. Not sure why the installation video removes the muffler on the 2016 Ford escape, but it is not necessary. I think I can install a second hitch in 15 to 20 minutes after doing it one time. I plan on using this hitch for a 5 bike rack and a small trailer.I am very happy with my purchase.
2015 Ford Escape Class 3 hitch will never be fully weight utilized; however, I wanted most stability for a mountain bike carrier, and the sale price could not be beat. Did the installation alone in the garage. I used the packaging cardboard as a floor mat allowing me to slide comfortably under the muffler. Installation took me an hour and a half alone. Do watch the excellent etrailer video before installing at home. I watched it twice. On my Escape I had to carefully lift the hitch right side front corner into position first as the starboard plate lip must slide over and past a small vehicle protrusion. Not overly difficult if you are patient. One suggestion may be helpful. Screw the wire bolt coils past the first three bolt threads. This permits you to mount the washer and screw the nut, when ready, a couple threads while the wire coils are securely attached to the bolt. Once there is no danger of losing the bolt inside the frame rail the wire can be pulled perpendicular off the bolt, which of course ruins the coil, but working alone I found this much easier than trying to hold the bolt from slipping into the frame rail while trying to unscrew the wire coil.
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Gwendolyn Y.
1/15/2025
Hi Cliff! Where are you headed with the bike to? Any favorite trails or parks?