Curt Trailer Hitch Receiver - Custom Fit - Class III - 2"
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2018 Kia Soul
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2018 Kia Soul
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This fully welded trailer hitch receiver bolts onto your vehicle's frame with no welding required. Powder coated steel is sturdy and corrosion resistant.
Features:
Specs:
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The install went well. I have a Kia Niro EV 2022, and their online video covered most everything.
I did not need any spacers.
I have attached a photo of the hitch cutout in the underbody panel - a little deeper than shown on their photo, and slightly wider. It is also easy to hold the panel by hand in its final position and decide what needs to be trimmed more. I used tin-snips, which worked really well. For the back cut, start with a 45 deg cut so you can get the snips in there, and then go back and make it 90deg. There is also a photo of the final install.
The only item that did not go as per instructions was the final underbody panel install. The right side had a conflict with the hitch flange (photo attached: looking up, you can see the flange+one bolt, and the cut in the panel). I used a hacksaw to cut a slot in the panel for the flange - not the cleanest in the world, but it worked. I don't know why this was needed on the right side, but not the left. The panel must be asymmetric.
Note that the Curt 13531 part number is the etrailer item C77NR. etrailer should cross-reference this on their site so there is no confusion about them shipping the wrong part.
Looking forward to trying it out with a bike rack!
Victoria H.
1/21/2025
That sounds super convenient Jeff, I really love the tilt feature as well! Do you have a favorite place you like to ride?
Jeff
1/20/2026
after one year there has been no problems. The bike rack works great with it.
I purchased this product about a year ago from ETrailer for my Kia Niro PHEV. The personnel at ETrailer were very helpful in assisting me select the product that would fit. The site did not specifically mention the 2023 Kia Niro PHEV as a candidate for a particular hitch I was interested in so I asked a question through the site. They responded with a detailed answer, as well as an in-house review of whether it would fit my car. Bottom line is I bought it and works fine. I’m very satisfied. I will definitely buy from them in the future.
Michael
9/8/2025
Still working out great. Excellent product!
The hitch itself is great, as far as one can tell two weeks after install and 2 uses of a bike rack. We had 3 mountain bikes on a 2in bike rack and it all worked as designed. The installation was a bit more challenging than it should have been. It could have been easier with better instructions and the fix of one design/fit issue.
This was installed on a 2024 Kia Niro Plugin Hybrid. The instructions said to remove the bumper fascia and cut it out for the hitch receiver. This was absolutely not necessary. An about 1 in notch where the receiver sticks out, without removing the fascia, is perfectly fine. See attached final installation picture.
The instructions could be more detailed and step by step with a few more pictures. There was a lot of guessing and trying during the installation.
The hitch was welded not perfectly straight, and getting it in place was rather challenging, because it is very stiff (as it should be) and so is the frame of the car. We got it in with some force and were able to somehow line up the bolts and tighten everything.
We had an additional fit issue and couldn't at first figure out why the bolt holes wouldn't line up with the threaded holes in the car frame. Many ins and back outs of the hitch, trying to find the issue, and we almost sent the hitch back, because it just didn't fit. We finally found a bolt, one of what appears to be two, holding the bumper to the frame on the driver side. It was preventing the hitch to slide far enough back to align with the holes in the frame of the car. We finally took out the bold and removed about half of the head with an angle grinder, and left just enough to torque it back down. This gave the hitch just enough room to slide in the correct position. I believe the hitch could be designed slightly differently to accommodate the bolt. Picture attached with the red arrow pointing to the bolt behind the installed hitch. This is on the driver side and easily recognizable once you look under your car.
Hope this helps somebody else.
Great hitch at a good price. Installation on this vehicle was a little difficult but the video instruction were a big help!
Old style trailer hitch, CMF13531, was shipped instead of newer, C77NR, as shown! Because of this I had to make the mods shown in the attached photos to reinstall the stone Guard cover. If you install the hitch yourself, I recommend placing it on a floor jack as the hitch does have some weight to it. Aligned the one side and had to use a crowbar on the other side as the hitch was hitting the bottom U channel by about a 16th of an inch. Floor jack was able to lift the hitch so I could aligned the bolt holes.
Overall the hitch is great. Installation was straightforward and easy enligh. Once in place the hitch had a nice hidden fit.
Here are a couple tips for future customers:
I did need to use the spacers that go between the frame and hitch. How I installed them was after getting the hitch in place I loosely started the four mounting bolts so the hitch was secured. One side at a time I removed one bolt, slid the spacer into place and reinstalled the mounting bolt through the hitch and spacer. After removing the second bolt I used a pry bar to create enough space between the frame and the hitch to rotate the spacer up and into place. I loosely reinstalled the second bolt and repeated the process on the other side before torquing the four bolts to Curt's specs. It took a little bit of rotating and jockying the hitch to get the bolt, hole in the hitch, hole in the spacer, and threaded hole in the car's frame all lined up but it wasn't too difficult.
I removed three exhaust hangers. One on either side of the muffler and one on the exhaust pipe toward the front of the vehicle, lowered the exhaust as far as I needed it and secured it with a strap that I wrapped around the rear axle and exhaust.
The evaporative emissions canister was definitely in the way for mounting the driver's side of the hitch. The instructions say remove the two nuts and one bolt holding the canister and lower the canister out of the way. This didn't provide enough space to work so I disconnected the three quick release vapor lines and one electrical plug and removed the whole canister from the vehicle and set it aside. There are some clever little retaining clips that are part of the canister that lock it into place on the mounting studs. You expose these after removing the nuts, which are 12mm by the way not 13. I used a small pick to pry these retaining clips open so they released from the mounting studs and the canister came free.
The instructions that come with the hitch say you need to trim a fascia underneath and in the center of the vehicle for clearance of the hitch receiver. This is for an older model Niro as you can see in the instructions' photos. There is no such fascia on our HEV Niro. I can't speak to what it is like on the EV or the PHEV though. So, no trimming of anything was needed for this install for our hybrid model.
I hope this helps future customers.
Easy installation.
Great product and easy install on my Kia Niro EV . Took about an hour by myself. Used a wood block to hold other side while I bolted up. Toughest part was getting the plastic cover cut out and not snapping any plastic tabs on the bumper. Didn’t even have to jack the car up
Quality product and video installation made install surprisingly easy! Very happy customer.
Easy to install. Delivered quickly. Great product and very helpful installation video!
This is supposed to be an exact fit for a 2023 Kia Niro, and I had to drill out the holes on the driver side and lift the hitch slightly with a bottle jack to get it to fit. Quality is good but the engineers screwed up with the fitment.
Everything fit. Easy install.
Sturdy build and directions were helpful. I eventually got it installed, though it took longer than an hour. It looks good and seems really sturdy.
The tangs of the hitch weren't quite parallel to the frame of the car and this made it difficult to figure out spacers needed and get the bolts started. only used a spacer on one side, and only with one bolt, due to the non-parallel tang. It all seems to have pulled up square after tightening the bolts.
Happy to have a hitch to mate with a sturdy bike rack.
It was an easy instillation and looks purpose built and very sturdy.
This is the 3rd hitch I have purchased from etrailer. The installation on all 3 went smoothly. They fit in the existing holes, so no drilling needed. The wire harness was installed as a plug in situation. Thanks for the good quality..
I installed this on my 2023 Kia Niro EV (Wave). This is my third Curt aftermarket hitch over the years, and this install was one of the more frustrating I've ever done. I think it's marked "easy" because it doesn't require fishwires or frame drilling, and that is a plus, but the positioning is very challenging.
It was clear I needed to use the spacer plates: without the spacer plates, the hitch is too lose (I can easily fit a finger between the hitch and the frame). With the spacer plates, however, getting the rear screws in is very challenging -- the tolerances are extremely tight, since the hitch has to be right up against the frame with the bulk of it inside the bumper. There are two improvements Curt could make that would give this 5 stars. 1) the spacer plates could have some sort of interlocking tabs that fit into slots in the hitch to prevent them from moving independently when positioning the hitch on the frame. It was incredibly frustrating to get the hitch into place and then have one of the spacer plates slide out of alignment. 2) Rather than fitting basically inside the bumper, the hitch could be mounted further back (closer to the front screws than the rear one) with a longer receiver tube. It would require more trimming of the lower body plate, but would give more flexibility when positioning it. However, the hitch is attached which is the important part.
The service I got from each trailer was great
This hitch is a perfect fit for the Kia Niro Hybrid. It looks great and works well for hauling a bike rack.
Very impressive. The etrailer representative Candra G was super knowlegable and confirmed the correct hitch for my new 2023 Kia Niro. She followed up with information and in the end, the hitch arrived 3 days before expected.
I was very pleased with this purchse experience.
Quick and fast service for the return item and the replacement item I ordered.
Jim
9/2/2024
perfect
Received my hitch quickly:) All the reviews helped me in this purchase.
Product came partially outside of the box with scratched metal and paint scratched off. It should come wrapped in a stronger box.
Info for this part was:
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Victoria H.
1/21/2025
Hi Jeff, thanks for the photos and the install looks good! What kind of bike do you have?