Video Transcript for Installation Guide for the Stealth Hitches Hidden Rack Receiver on a 2019 Audi Q8

Hey everybody, Ryan here at etrailer. Today on our 2019 Audi Q8 we're gonna be showing you how to install the stealth trailer hitch receiver. But before we get into that, why don't we just check this out and make sure it's gonna work for you. The main thing that this hitch is gonna do is remain completely hidden whenever you're not using it. So when you're just driving around town not wanting to use an accessory your vehicle will completely factor, you're not even gonna be able to see the hitch at all. Which is definitely a good thing on a vehicle like the Audi, they look really sharp and personally if I could get away with doing that, that's the path that I would go.

But with that said, when you are ready to use it the receiver tube is gonna be detachable, all right And then up underneath the vehicle this is how you get to the hitch. So there's a small cut out here that will create when you install this. The tube is just going to kind of push up into place. So we'll make sure you have your handle turned there, it'll slide right up and lock in the position. Once the tube is kinda locked in there now you're gonna be able to use accessories which kind of brings you to my next point.

With this particular setup, it's only designed to be used with accessories, so bike racks and things of that nature. If you are wanting to do some towing, there is a towing kit available that has a different a special type ball mount to allow you to hook up your trailer as well as some wiring to kind of get you get you going in that regard. But the receiver tube, once you have it on, it's gonna come out a little ways and I think that's beneficial especially being designed for those accessories, it's gonna give you plenty of clearance. One of the big questions that a lot of people wonder is if you put a trailer hitch back here is it gonna interfere with your hands free lift gate assist And with this one the answer is no. Even with the receiver tube in you're still able to kick your foot under there and have the hatch open up like it should.

The receiver tube is gonna have a two inch by two inch opening and a reinforced collar for extra strength. This is a super common size and a lot of stuff's gonna work with it. If you already have a smaller inch and a quarter by inch and a quarter accessory and you're wanting to hold onto it, you can actually pick those size receiver tubes up separately as well. And since these do pop out if you want they also offer carrying cases to keep these all cleaned up and put away and organized. So just figure it out, throw that out there.

It is going to use the standard five eights pin and clip. Keep in mind though, one doesn't come with the hitch. If you need one, you can grab it here at etrailer. And something to think about, since this can only be used with accessories a lot of times if you pick one up new they're gonna come with one included, so just keep that in the back of your head too. As far as how much weight the hitch can handle it's gonna be pretty high. Maximum gross tongue weight rating's gonna be 800 pounds. That's gonna be the amount of weight pushing down on the hitch. So with that, with that capacity there you shouldn't really run into any issues using just about any size bike rack or cargo carrier. Now we can grab a couple of measurements and these will help you figure out what type of accessories will work best. If you go from the ground to the top inside edge of the receiver tube opening it's gonna be about 15 and a half inches. So if your accessory has a straight shank or one that has a rise in it, that'll work out just fine. From the center of the hitch pin hole to the edge of the rear bumper, that's only gonna be about an inch. Didn't talk about this earlier but you can use that to help figure out that if any folding accessories you might have can be sort in an upright position without hitting the back of your Audi. Other than that, at the end of the day good fit for the Audi, you know especially using those types of accessories, it's gonna be a clean factory type way to do that. And like I said before, if you're trying to do some towing you can always check into that towing kit. As far as the installation goes, believe it or not it wasn't too bad, it was much easier than I was anticipating. The fascia does have to come off, but there's only a handful of fasteners that you have to take out and really no crazy tools or anything like that. Just take your time, be careful, you know, a lot of plastic so just stay patient. But if you plan on doing it yourself and you'd like to follow along, feel free to hang around, we'll go ahead, pull it into the garage and put the hitch on together now. To begin our installation we're gonna be here at the back of our Audi and we're gonna have to remove the fascia so let's gonna start with getting the taillights out. So there's gonna be these plastic covers here that we need to remove to expose some of the fasteners underneath. And you can take a plastic trim tool like this, just kind of carefully, kind of work your way around it until it pops off. That'll let us get to a couple of bolts here. 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. These screws we are gonna remove, we'll use a T 25 torx bit. And when you go pull these out be careful you don't want to drop 'em. So I'm just gonna take a magnet there, be on the safe side, pull that out. We can set that stuff to the side here. And as far as getting our taillight out, you can kinda work it back and forth. And what you might need to do is take a plastic trim tool there. I'm gonna get in behind there to release it and once it's released we can unplug it. So there's a connector and you can just push down on that tab and separate it and we'll set our light off to the side. With the taillight out of the way that'll give us access to another fastener here, which is that screw there. And we'll come in with our T 25. Looks like you might be able to use a flathead screwdriver on these two, but we'll go with our torx bit and get this pulled out. Moving underneath the vehicle now just behind our rear tire along this edge, we're gonna have four fasteners. Again a T 25 torx bit. We'll get all these removed. Moving towards the middle of our vehicle we're gonna have four more fasteners and we'll just use our same T 25 to get 'em all out. Moving to your wheel while now along this edge we're gonna have two torx bit screws. Once both of those are out you can kind of grab a liner here if I can get a hold of it. I'm just gonna kind of peel that back up a little ways and then that will expose another torx bit. So right there, right in between the two that we just, just pulled out. What I've done now is use some painters tape along the scene here and everywhere that we're gonna be working just so we don't accidentally scratch anything, but we're gonna have to pop this piece of trim off. I don't think we'll have to take it off completely, more or less maybe about halfway. But you can take a trim tool, and just is very carefully trying to start to work your way around here and it pops off pretty easy. And that's going to expose a couple of fasteners under here that we can get removed. Our two fasteners will be right here Like that, popped out. Then the next one will be located down here. Now with an extra set of hands we can get our fascia removed. So on each side of it you can kind of grab it and this is just gonna pop out essentially. This one seems to be coming off pretty good. It's just held in place with some, some plastic clips. If it gets hung up what you can do these little keepers here you kind of push down on 'em and that'll help release it. Okay, we'll just kind of continue to work our way across here. And once it's free don't pull back too far, we may have some electrical connections we need to remove. Looks like over on the driver's side you may have one. Come to find out you do not want to disconnect this wiring, all right But there's some clips kind of holding it in place. You can pull back on a few of 'em just to give us some extra space here. But what we're gonna try to do we're gonna leave it attached and just kind of set it on a cart while we're working on the hitch. Now we're able to remove our bumper beam. So we're gonna have a total of four bolts. Two up top. I'm using an 18 millimeter to get these removed. We wanna hold on the hardware before we use it. I already took the other side took the other bolts off the other side. But we can remove our bumper beam and we will not be reinstalling this piece. Now we can grab our hitch and put it in the position and essentially this is just replacing our, our bumper beam there. It's gonna take all of that factory hardware and I'm gonna get 'em all started hand tight. That way the hitch will support itself., we can make sure it's centered and then we can come back and tighten 'em on down. I got 'em all started. And you can't really shift the hitch from left to right too much but you can go up and down. So I'm just gonna try to line it up and center it with that little stud there. Come back and snug them up with a 18 millimeter. And now we need to make sure to come back with a torque wrench and tighten down all the hardware to the amount specified in the instructions. When I'm doing these hitches I kinda like to make an X pattern. I feel like it just helps everything draw together a little more evenly. We can grab our latch block assembly deal here and get this bolted up to the hit. You want the handle side to be on the passenger side of the vehicle. Two holes in it are gonna line up with the two holes in the hitch. Take the bolts and saw 'em through and depending on what hit you got too, you know if you got the tow package one you might have some hooks and safety chain hooks you have to put here and other things so just keep that in mind. Yours might be a little different. But ours is just this so we'll get the hardware going here. To tighten these down I got a 1516 size socket and wrench. Of course, once you have these snug need to come back with your torque wrench and tighten 'em down into the amount specify. Now we're able to come over to our fascia and trim out what they call the gravel guard, so this spot on the bottom. We need to create the opening so you know the hitch will fit through and we can, we can get to it. So follow the instructions. They give you a diagram, so I tape that out here. I'm gonna use a dremel tool to cut some of this out and then I might switch over to another cutting device just to get on this along this edge cuz it's a little tight. But whatever you got will work you know whatever you see fit so go ahead and get this trimmed out. I got this piece trimmed out here and just to kind of clean everything up, you can come back with a utility knife or file something like that and clean up all the edges. With the fascia trimmed out now we can grab an extra set of hands and carefully reinstall and resecure it the opposite way that you removed. So I got the fascia all resecured. Went right back on with no issues the opposite way that we, we took it off. And with that done, that'll finish up our look at and our installation of the stealth trailer hitch on our 2019 Audi Q8..