Draw-Tite Max-Frame Trailer Hitch Receiver - Custom Fit - Class III - 2"

Video Transcript for Set up: Draw-Tite Max-Frame Trailer Hitch Receiver on a 2022 Mercedes-Benz GLC

Hi John with etrailer. Listen, if you're ready for hitch mounted accessories or some light duty towing with your Mercedes, then look no further. This is Draw-Tite Class III Receiver Hitch that we installed on our 2022 Mercedes-Benz GLC 300. Now if we take a close look at the hitch, you're gonna see that this has a gloss black power coat finish on here from Draw-Tite and this is a hidden cross tube style. The only part of the receiver that you're gonna see is just the receiver tube opening right here. The rest of it's tucked up underneath, behind the bumper.

So this is a Class III. What that means is this is a 2" by 2" reinforced collar that Draw-Tite did. This is kind of the industry standard for a Class III receiver hitch. Now as far as your chain loops right here, this is gonna be a wire type and I like those. These are really handy for your tow chains, if you're gonna use 'em for the standard S hook, there's plenty of room, enough room that you can use a heavy duty clevis style easily with it.

Now this is just the hitch that you're gonna get. So if you're gonna do some towing, you're probably gonna need a pin and clip. This is gonna take a 5/8" pin and clip, that's the size. And this is a standard size and a standard one that we have here at etrailer. We also have some that lock if you're looking for more security.

And if you're in the market for hitch mounted accessories, a lot of them will already come with a pin and clip like this. They'll call it an anti-rattle clip 'cause it'll bolt down securely to this hitch here. So let's get some measurements and see how this Draw-Tite hitch fits on our Mercedes. Now we've got 19" wheels on this one, and it's the 4MATIC, which is kind of a standard setup. So let's get some ground clearance from the ground to the top of the inside collar here, we're looking at 11-1/2", and the other measurement we like to get is from the center of the pinhole out to the edge of the fascia here and we're looking at about 6".

Now these numbers are important if you're choosing a hitch mounted accessory, especially for this Mercedes, you may consider one that's gonna have a slight rise to it so you get a little bit more ground clearance back here. The other one, from the hole, from the pinhole to the edge of the fascia here, if you get an accessory that folds up, you wanna make sure that when it's folded, it's not gonna impact the back of your bumper. And finally, let's talk about some of the weight capacities for this Draw-Tite hitch, tongue weight rating, the force pushing down on this hitch, 675 pounds, that's pretty good amount if you're looking at the hitch mounted accessories, you wanna load up like a cargo rack full of gear. As far as towing, we're looking at 4,500 pounds. Now that's gonna be the force pulling on the trailer hitch and the 4,500 pounds is gonna be the weight of your trailer plus anything that you put in it or on it. So you definitely wanna check with the owner's manual on your Mercedes and find out how much your GLC could actually tow. Now as far as installation of the Draw-Tite hitch, on the GLC, Horizon Global does rank this a 10 out of 10 as far as difficulty goes. We will be removing the rear fascia, and there's gonna be some trimming depending on your model. On this particular one, we didn't have to trim, but it does bolt up, there's no cutting or welding other than that. But it is a little tricky sometimes to get the body panels off of these Mercedes. But if you want to see if you can do this in your garage or if you want to see what it takes a shop to install the hitch, stick around, and we're gonna show you step by step. To begin our installation, we'll come to the rear of the Mercedes, open the hatch. What we need to do is remove the taillights. In order to do that, we're gonna have some panels on the inside we need to take out. You'll see a carpeted inner panel right here. Now I'm using the plastic wedge today. You can use the screwdriver too. I'm gonna grab at the bottom here, and then there's gonna be a tab right here that we can work back. Then we're gonna have another one up here. I'm gonna do the same thing, just kind of run that in there and that'll loosen these up. Now this process is gonna be the same on both sides just the panels are shaped differently. On the inside here, if you grab an eight millimeter socket, you're gonna have three flange nuts that you need to remove, and also disconnect the wiring harness at the back of the taillight here. So I've got the one out, they're tiny little things so hang on to 'em, but there'll be three of them. I get a little bit more room back here. You are gonna have your cargo hook. I'm gonna pop the plastic cover off from the bottom like that, underneath is a T40 Torx screw. We can remove that, (tool buzzes) just pop this panel loose just a little bit. That would be a little bit easier for us to get in and get the other bolts that are remaining on the taillight. I'll show you the connector is gonna have a spring clip on it like this at the top. So you're able to get in there with your fingernail, just bend that down and pull out. So that's the connector on the back of the taillight here. This little pin right here can be in there pretty tight, and it was this time around too. I used my wedge right back here carefully and pushed out a little bit. In the past, if you want to hit the studs with a plastic hammer and that'll help sometimes. In any event, we got the taillight out. Like I said, the process is gonna be similar for the driver's side as well. Now once you have the taillights out, you're gonna want to come to the rear tire underneath here. On both sides, you're gonna have two 10 millimeter screws here that need to come out. (tool buzzes) Now our car today is missing some fasteners and then some of the fasteners are different. So if you have more fasteners under here, just kind of take a look around, we want this to be kind of free under here, so we'll do this on both sides and then we can move to inside the wheel well. Now inside the fender well, you're gonna have three plastic fasteners just like this. It'll be located here, a little, and then up the wheel well, approximately here and then up here. So in order to get these out, I'm gonna use a hook today and just grab the inside and pull out. These can get pretty tight and if you need to get some needle nose pliers on there to pull that out, you can do that. Go ahead and pop that out. It doesn't matter if it comes all the way out, and then this section will pop out. Next we have the outer wheel well trim that we need to pull out roughly to about right here. So you can take your fingers. (plastic pops) I'm gonna pull out on this and it'll have a clip right here, and I'm gonna use a plastic wedge. (plastic pops) (plastic pops) This is the clip I'm talking about right here. So I used the wedge to push down. This one also popped up. We're gonna keep moving our way up. Just take your time. Okay, so right around right here, don't pull too hard, this is gonna be enough to free it up and we can come to the inside and peel back the inner fender well liner. Now there's two fasteners that we're gonna be looking at. One is gonna be a plastic push pin fastener like we took off right here and it's right here. So I'm gonna lift up on the core. This might be kind of hard to show on the camera and we've got some needle nose on at that time. This is, well just one of those areas that's really hard to access, and I'm gonna use a flathead screwdriver, and see if I can get that core up. Okay, we've got that out, now if you look up right here, we have an eight millimeter screw that needs to come out. (tool buzzes) Now underneath the rear bumper here, you'll have to bend the heat shield just a little bit. But about in this location and this location, there's two 10 millimeter screws that we need to remove. (tool buzzes) Okay, so for this next step, we're gonna be removing the fascia. So make sure you clear a spot to put the fascia, and it's gonna be helpful to have another person to help get this off. Today we've got Jake with etrailer, and I've already done the other side, loosened it up. So what you need to do is pull this wheel well trim back on the inside of here, you're gonna have tabs so you reach behind the wheel well fender. And if you reach your hand up and behind this, you're gonna feel the tabs of the body panel here. You can pull on this if you like, and that'll help pop this out. There's one clip, there's the second one. Just take your time doing this. That popped out right there and that's what we needed. (plastic pops) And then these will pop along the top. Gently work your way back. Once you get up to the taillights here, take a wedge or a screwdriver and these tabs here, we're gonna pop these out like this. That was the locking tab here. We're gonna do the same thing with this one. (plastic pops) Okay, we've got one more at the corner. So this tab in particular right here at the taillight is pretty stout, and so I'm gonna slide a screwdriver in here, and I'm pushing down and out. Now we're loose on both sides. Now you're still gonna have clips in the center here and we're still gonna have a connector underneath. (plastic pops) There we go, okay. And yep. So I've got a connector right here that we need to grab. And first thing's first, it's on a fascia. (plastic pops) Get that loose, it's gonna have a locking tab on it. These can be pretty, I think, could be on there tight as well. Okay, so I used a pick to get this locking tab back, that was on there pretty good. We should be able to pinch and release that. Once that locking tab goes out, just push down on it, and it's a spring clip. That's the only connector we have. So we can take our fascia and set it off to the side. Now with the fascia removed, we need to unbolt our exhaust on both sides of the car here. So this is gonna be a 3/8" socket. I've got a six point here and it's working just fine. (tool buzzes) Because these bolt heads are a little bit different, so, but my six point socket is working just fine. (tool buzzes) Now this exhaust is supported almost directly underneath here by another support and isolator. So we don't have to worry about anything, we just need this disconnected so we can remove the crash beam. Now to remove the crash beam here, it's gonna be an 18 millimeter socket. It's gonna be handy to have a ratcheting wrench as well for the backside. I'll begin by taking the two flange nuts off on the front here. (tool buzzes) Now we're gonna be reusing these when we put the hitch on so don't lose them. Now the flange nuts on the backside, you may have to bend the heat shield outta the way just a little bit. This is where the wrench comes in handy. (tool buzzes) Now once you have all the flange nuts loose, you can check, and that's gonna have an adhesive sticky pad on it. And we wanna watch this section here, (plastic rattles) but just pull out gently, keep watching the center but this should bend out of the way and flex out of the way. Just drop that down and set this off to the side. Now if there's any gasket that's stuck to the car or the hitch, it's probably a good idea to remove this. You can either pick up a new gasket for this or in our case today, we're gonna be using a silicone sealer to seal this off. Now this step is optional but I recommend it. Mercedes put a gasket here for a reason. We don't want exhaust fumes getting into the cabin. And so this black RTV silicone sealant is gonna do the job. Like I said, you can buy the factory gasket if you want from Mercedes and it'll do the same thing. But we're gonna apply some on the frame here and then we're gonna apply some to our trailer hitch. So with the RTV on there, you can take our hitch, we're gonna hang it on this top stud. (metal rattles) Now initially, we're gonna be contacting this heat shield. Just go ahead and bend it outta your way for right now and do your best to center up the hitch. Now with our hitch in position, we can take the sealer and we'll go around just on the passenger side, the driver's side is blocked off completely, so do that. And I've already scraped the old gasket off of this. Make sure you know which way is top on your bumper. And this one you're gonna have to sneak in a little bit here 'cause we've got the stud on the bottom, we have this plastic piece in the center, and it still has to clear the top as well, so this is gonna be a little tricky. (metal rattles) Got the two bottom studs in right now. (plastic pops) I've got the plastic part. Okay, so we've got the hitch sandwiched on here. I'm gonna take the factory flange nuts that we took off and I'm gonna put 'em on the top outer studs over here just to hold everything in place while we get this thing situated. Now with the top two flange nuts holding everything in position, make sure it's lined up as centered as possible. We kind of did that when we first put it on. We had a little bit of play left and right. So with all that being installed, I'm gonna take the other two flange nuts, and I'm gonna snug these up and then we can torque these to the specs that's gonna be found in the installation manual. (tool buzzes) Now with our hitch properly torqued, we can reinstall the exhaust. Now the directions call for trimming the lower fascia panel but because there's so many different models, we found out over the years that you don't always have to trim it. So I recommend test fitting your fascia before you cut it, that's what we're gonna do right now. So we have our fascia just resting on the bumper right here, but I'm looking at the alignment tabs and when it's on, it's gonna be close but this is gonna be just fine. I'd rather have a nice tight fit here than have to trim this out with the kick sensors down here, so this'll work for us. We're gonna install this without trimming. As far as reinstalling the fascia it goes, don't forget to connect the electrical connector under the bumper here. But the installation process is really gonna be just the reversal of taking it off. Now if we run into any particular situations, we'll be sure to let you know. Now when you're reinstalling your taillights, little trick we like to use around here is take some painter's tape and stick it on top of the flange nut and then you can take your socket and just jam that down on there, and that'll give it a pretty good bite and keep it from falling off as you feed it through and reassemble it on the car. And once you get everything reassembled and secured, that will do it for today's look at some of the features and the installation of Draw-Tite's Class III Receiver Hitch on our 2022 Mercedes-Benz GLC 300.