Todd Beaulieu

My Curt came in yesterday so of course, I immediately charged into the project after work. Why wouldn't I, when they assured me it would take a mere 45 minutes - an hour and a half?

There were no pictures of screw locations, so it took me a little while to locate everything. I did no homework with Bentley beforehand, so my bad.

The instructions failed to mention that you have to remove the Nav drive and frame, as well as the toolkit assembly and the Bose amplifier. This all adds time before and after the install.

Any time I've ever taken the wheel wheel covers off the wheels have been off. This is the first time I tried to remove them with the car on the ground. I didn't have the right torx socket bits. That held me up for 20 minutes, at least, until I found a neighbor with some.

By far, though, the biggest challenge was removing the bumper. Because I jumped right in without reading through the instructions first, I has half way through when I realized they said NOT to remove the bumper for the allroad. They should have that distinction at the TOP of the instructions. I noticed shortly after setting the bumper aside. Having said that, I think I needed to remove it. I'm not convinced I could drill with the bumper on. So the issue with the bumper was simply not knowing how to pop the side clamps after the nuts were all off. You have to RIP SO HARD that you're sure you're going to break something. I discovered this after messing with it for half an hour and finally coming in to the computer to research it.

I also had to remove the 13 pin connector and bracket. They were in the way for drilling and for the bolt itself. I had to drill out one of the screws (stripped from the factory?) and the rivets that held the bracket to the car. I believe I'm going to take the connector apart to hard wire the module, anyway.

I found the center of the wheel well (they call it the "body") and held the hitch up to it, centering it. Punched a starter hole, dropped the hitch and drilled it out. Bolted the hitch up loosely and repeated for one bolt on the other side. This was the two inside bolts.

I then drilled out the outside bolts from inside the car. This was a real PITA, as the bit kept walking. And it was dark.

4 bolts were in at that point. Time to drill out the vertical bolts into the wheel well.

Sadly, the bracket was not centered side to side, so while one hole was sitting nicely on a flat spot, the other side was on an edge, meaning the bolt would not be able to sit flush when dropped. It would hit the rounded edge. There was nothing I could do for this. I rechecked and as far as I could tell I was centered. I couldn't really force the hitch to twist and I didn't know if that would result in an incorrect angle out from the car, so I just accepted it.

The aluminum plate will not fit back on as-is, because of the bolt heads. I will grind or cut that to get it back on.

Next up is figuring out the wiring.

Overall, I wish I had the original hitch, but I was NOT going to pay a ton of money. Hopefully this will be strong enough. I have a 4 x 8 trailer. I think it will be just fine.

skideeppow

i paid my mechanic 130 to have it installed. They did a great job with a very clean bracket for the 13 pin harness

enzeder

Nice write-up. Mine took about 45-90 mins (tongue firmly in cheek). Well, I don't remember it being too bad, but I did leave the bumper on when I did the install.

I gently "re-aligned" the hitch to avoid seams, etc. The T at the front in particular needed help.

allroaddave

It depends on many factors - your state's rules, DMV etc, but here in Kansas, a small enough trailer not only does not have to be registered and plated, it does not require lights, if only used in daylight.

Just FYI.

My point is, if you're running a small trailer and only during the day, you may not even need to fuss with hooking up the lights. But check with your DMW, Hi-Patrol, local trailer sales places etc and find out for sure.....

change2E85

I had mine installed at U-Haul and they did not have to remove the bumper... They drilled the holes wrong, moved it over and again drilled the wrong holes and it was 2 inches off center. The bumper cover has to come off! It cost U-Hual $1400 to have my body shop repair the damage and install the hitch perfectly. They even powdercoated it to match my car!

Todd Beaulieu

That's why I let as few people touch my car as possible. A simple alignment once ended badly when they torched through the air line. They patched it up eventually, but it took HOURS while i was waiting. Then, one the way home the wheel almost fell off! I had to get off the highway and check it. Yep. All the lugs were loose and half way off.

Some punk from a tire place gouged up my rim once (badly) and hid it in a bag so I wouldn't notice until the next spring when I changed my wheels out again.

I could go on. I do almost everything myself now.

miahshodan

does the hitch end up flat? I would want to use it with a bike rack and I read the OEM hitch is not flat.

Todd Beaulieu

Do you mean parallel to the ground? If so, yes.