Video Transcript for Set up: Draw-Tite Max-Frame Trailer Hitch Receiver on a 2021 Mercedes-Benz GLE

Hey everybody, Ryan here at etrailer. Today, on our 2021 Mercedes-Benz GLE 350, we're gonna be showing you how to install the Draw-Tite trailer hitch receiver. But before we get into that, why don't we just take a minute, check this out and make sure it's gonna be right for you. First and foremost, if I was wanting to put a trailer hitch on a vehicle like this, probably the first thing that would come to my mind is the appearance. You know, how it's gonna look. These are really sharp vehicles, so I'd want something that would look as factory as possible, right And honestly, I don't think it can get much better in this.

For the most part, it's gonna be completely hidden. Really, the only thing you'll be able to see is the receiver tube opening here. So, I feel like they did a really good job of making it look more factory, if you will. So, honestly, the only way it could get any better is if it was completely hidden. One of the big questions a lot of people do wonder is if, by putting a trailer hitch back here, is it gonna affect your hands-free liftgate assist feature And with this one, the answer is no.

You're just gonna have to kick your foot to either side of the receiver tube opening, and everything will open up like it should. The hitch is gonna have a two-inch by two-inch receiver tube opening, which is a super common size, so a lot of different things are gonna work with it. It is going to use that standard 5/8 pin and clip. Keep in mind though, the pin and clip doesn't come with the hitch. If you can need one, not a big deal, you can grab it at etrailer here.

Or if you end up buying a new accessory, a lot of times, they'll come with one of these, so just keep that in mind. The safety chain openings are gonna be large enough to allow us to use pretty much any size hook that our trailer might have on it. As far as weight capacities go, it's gonna have some really high numbers. The maximum gross tongue weight is gonna be 800 pounds. That's gonna be the amount of weight, pushing down on the hitch.

Really good. So, you'll be able to use any size bike rack or cargo carrier that you'd like to, for example. As far as hitch's maximum gross trailer weight rating goes, that's gonna be 8,000 pounds. That's gonna be the amount of weight that is pulling on the hitch. So, the weight of your trailer, plus anything that you might have on it. I do always like to suggest though, it's never a bad idea, just to grab your Mercedes owner's manual. That way, you can check in there and make sure that your vehicle can handle that much weight safely. So, now I'm gonna give you a couple of measurements and you can use these to help figure out what hitch-mounted accessories will work best. From the ground to the top inside edge of the receiver tube opening, that's gonna be about 14 inches. So, for those of you, planning on pulling a trailer, chances are really good, you're gonna need to get a ball mount with a rise in the shank. Probably that two-inch range would work for most people. From the center of the hitch pin hole to the edge of the rear bumper, that's gonna be about five inches. And you can use that measurement to help figure out that if any folding accessories you might have can be stored in that upright position without contacting the rear bumper. Other than that though, a hitch you really can't go wrong with. It looks good, and it is going to really open up your opportunities on what you're gonna be able to do with your Mercedes. As far as the installation goes, it's definitely time-consuming. Working on vehicles like this, you just wanna be patient and take your time and be deliberate. A lot of plastic clips and these are really well-built, so everything's tightfitting and just slow down a little bit and stay focused. But if this is something you plan on doing on your own, feel free to follow along. We'll go ahead and get started on it now. To beginner installation, we're gonna be underneath the back of our Mercedes and we are gonna have to remove the rear fascia. That way, we can get the hitch on. So, to start, on the bottom side, we're gonna have a total of eight fasteners that run along the bottom, four on each side. This is what the fastener's gonna look like. This has a 10-millimeter head. So, we'll get the four pulled out from each side. And I wanna mention, from this point on, anything we do to one side of the vehicle, we're also gonna do to the other side 'cause it'll be set up the same way. Now, if you move to your wheel wells, here at the back, along the edge, you're gonna have a total of three plastic push pin fasteners that look like this. So, one here, one more towards the middle, I believe it's kinda right there, and then one up a little higher up. So, to get these out, you can take a flathead screw driver and just pry underneath the head of it and pop that out. And then if it separates from the base, not a big deal, you can just get in there behind the base of it and pull that out as well. So, if you take your wheel well liner, you just peel it back out of the way. That'll expose a couple of fasteners that we need to remove. One of them will be right here. And that's simply just another push pin-type deal, just like the ones that we just removed. So, I'll go ahead and grab my flathead and pull it out the same way we did with the others. Once you got that push pin removed, if you follow your way up, kinda in this little gap here, there's gonna be an eight-millimeter-head screw right there that we're gonna have to pull out as well. Now, you can open up your rear hatch and we can remove our floor covering, it kinda just pops right out. That way, we can get to a bolt that's located right here in the center. Here's that bolt I was referencing, just right there in the center. And we're gonna remove that using a T30 Torx bit. With that bolt out, now we can remove this threshold piece. So, you're just gonna grab the corner of it and start to work it up. These are in there pretty good, so just take your time. You can take a trim tool and kinda come in from the back side and help it out a little bit. And these are just plastic fasteners in here, holding this in. So, once we get this popped off, I'll flip it around and kinda take a better look at it here. It felt like it popped free. I'm gonna turn it around. These are the fasteners that we're holding it in. So, I was trying to get my tool under there, in this general vicinity, and help pop it out. So, now we can set this off to the side and out of the way. Now, we can remove these cargo hooks here. So, you have a plastic cover. Just take a trim tool and pry up on that. And that's gonna expose this bolt under here. Now, this is an odd-type bolt. And the majority of people aren't gonna have a socket that fits it. I tried some of the normal ones and you just really don't get a good bite. And so, what I'm gonna do, let's get this out of the way here, what I'm gonna do is just take a pair of vise-grips here. So, like I said, most people won't probably gonna have something like this. And as long as you're careful with these and get a good bite on this, you're not gonna damage this bolt. And thankfully, these aren't in here super tight. So, make sure you have a good, solid bite, then you're able to break this free. And it just kinda is what it is. Preferably, use a socket, but like I said, a lot of people aren't gonna have a tool like this, so that's why I'm showing how to do it this way. That way, you don't get hung up or have to go out and buy a special tool to get that removed. What we're able to do now is we're gonna have this plastic cover here by our taillight, we need to remove that. So, you can kinda just grab up on this corner and pop it out. Those are the fasteners that is holding it in. We can get our side panels pop loose. I'm gonna just pop this thing out of the way. It just slides out. That'll make it a little easier. And then we can start to work from the side here over. And these will have plastic clips behind there as well. So, if you need to, if you need to give it a little help, you can go in here with a trim tool and kinda carefully work your way up. You probably don't need to completely remove this, we'll just pop it somewhat free for now and kinda go from there. Now, we can get access to our taillight fasteners. So, there's gonna be a total of three eight-millimeter-head nuts. Two in these holes and then one a little closer to the front, which we'll get to in a second. They're buried in there and I'm concerned about dropping them down and losing them. So, what you can do, take your eight-millimeter socket and I just kinda stuffed a piece of paper towel in there and that should kinda grab onto the nut. And these aren't on there that tight. I just broke it loose by hand. And this is kinda finesse here. So, I'm just gonna kinda keep applying pressure on it while I'm loosening this up. And when it feels like it came off of the stud there, just very, very carefully pull that out. The third nut that you're gonna have to remove is located a little bit further up inside the panel by the corner of the taillight, and it's an eight-millimeter head. And just for a reference, there's a little black alignment tab that comes out, just to the left of it as well. So, I'm gonna get my eight-millimeter in there and get it removed. To get the taillight out, we're gonna pull out on it. I wanna mention that I did take some painter's tape and just put it all around where we're gonna be working here 'cause I don't wanna risk scratching the paint or anything. So, I just kinda carefully push it to the outside, it'll release and then we'll disconnect it here. So, I'll just do it, it'd probably be really hard to pick up here. We'll disconnect it and set our light off to the side. But the way this connector works, on each side of it there, you're gonna have a tab, and so you can kinda just grab it and squeeze the top of it. And while you're squeezing, go ahead and pull it out. Now, what you're able to do is, this plastic trim piece that goes around your wheel well, you can pop that free. So, I've done that. It's almost easier, just to explain. So, this is just snapped into place, a few of these snaps here. And I've remove it up to about here where I got it, all right And these clips, what you can do, if you spray soapy water in these seams, it helps a little bit, but these are just snapped in. And you can take a trim tool, and starting down here, kinda try to pry down and pull out, and you want that thing to get, the center piece, to be kinda pushed down a little bit, and that'll let you pop it out. Once you get that one, the rest of them, you kinda come in from behind the wheel well and you can usually kinda feel around for it. And when you do that, if you can't push up on it like this, get your trim tool in there and kinda pry at the same time, it'll pop free. And usually, when this one pops free, the other two come out a lot easier. You almost just gently pull on this and they pop right out. Now, we can actually start to remove the fascia. And when you're doing this, just take your time. Don't rush it. There's a lot of clips. And this is gonna start to come off kind of the same way that we did this one. So, if you kinda feel in behind here, there will be those clips that are really similar. And we can just kinda start to work it free and work our way up here. You just work this piece up and off and there's gonna be three tabs that's kinda holding it in place, so start from the bottom and keep applying pressure and you can kinda work in behind there to get to those tabs and just keep prying it off like that. To the corner, kinda the same deal, once you get these three loose, just apply outward pressure like this to release these. If you have to, carefully take a plastic trim tool and kinda help it out a little bit. But once we get up to this point, it should start to pop free a little bit easier there. So, you'll just continue to work this along here and hopefully it all cooperates. And once you get to about this point, I'm gonna do the same thing on the other side and then we can grab an extra set of hands to help us actually get this removed. What I did too, this weather stripping that just pushes around the whole seam, I pulled that up and sprayed, in between here, with soapy water and that really helps kinda loosen everything up here. But we're gonna remove this carefully. And it looks like, over on the driver's side, we're gonna have an electrical connector that we need to undo. On the driver's side, it looks like there's gonna be two connectors. And to undo these, you can pull those white pieces out and then push down on the middle of the connector. And then we're gonna have one more, it looks like more towards the middle of our car as well. It looks like the last connector will be this little wire here. We'll pop that out. And then this will work the same way, in terms of getting it disconnected. With that free now, we should be in pretty good shape and we can set our bumper cover off to the side somewhere safe. With the fascia out of the way, now we can remove our bumper beam. So, on each side of it, we're gonna have a total of four nuts holding it on. And we'll use an 18-millimeter socket to get all of those removed. We got the final one removed. I took the other side apart already, or I took the other ones off. I did leave one on there hand tight though, just so, our bumper beam, when it come shooting off. The bumper beam is kinda just glued on as well. Let's take a flathead and kinda break that sealer free. And now, we can get it removed. Now, we can get our hitch up. What I did though, since the factory bumper beam did have a foam gasket, I just do some silicone, RTV gasket maker, and just kinda went around there in a thin bead, just to have something there. So, I did that on each side. Now, we can take our hitch and line that on up. Take our factory hardware and get it started hand tight. And in case you're wondering, the bumper beam will not be reinstalled because this is actually replacing it. Now, you wanna make sure that the hitch is centered 'cause it can slide either way a little bit. So, I just kinda eyeballed it and then measured a few different spots from the side of the hitch to this seam here and then to the corner and just wherever you see that you find appropriate and make sure it's the same on each side. That way, it's where it's supposed to be. But once that's done, we come back with our 18 and snug up all their hardware. Now, once everything is snug, we come back with our torque wrench and tighten down all the hardware to the amount specified in the instructions. Now, we can trim out our fascia. So, there's a diagram in the instructions and it looks like we're just gonna cut out kind of the center portion here. You find the center line, you measure it from several spots, do that and then make sure you're all squared away there. It's not a bad idea to check behind there and make sure you don't have wires or anything, which feels like we are all clear. And what we're gonna do now is trim this out. I'm gonna pop this out. And then if you want, you can come back with a file or a razor edge, a sand paper, whatever you got and kinda clean up these rough edges. With the fascia trimmed, you can hold this up, plug all them connectors back in and then we're probably gonna have to try to kinda finesse this around like that, then we can just start to work it back into place. And that'll finish up our look at and our installation of the Draw-Tite trailer hitch receiver on our 2021 Mercedes-Benz GLE..