Has anybody installed and used the Curt brand trailer hitch and if so, is a $179.00 price tag a good deal? Thank you.
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Has anybody installed and used the Curt brand trailer hitch and if so, is a $179.00 price tag a good deal? Thank you.
lol funny you should ask that, i spent about an hour and a half looking up info on the hitch options since i found the money to buy a hitch :)
heres what ive found about the curt/dylan hitch...
rated at 3500 lbs (psychos2 has photos of towing a boat that weighs much more than that.. )
you lose your rear tow hooks when you install it(some say you can use your reciever pin to hook a tow strap to.. but at 3500lb rating, i would think its risky)
you lose some ground clearance.. but it makes a good skid plate
it is prone to rusting.. so it should be painted with a good rust resistant coating before installation
i beleive its the same as the one that uhaul offers for the VX
179 sounds like a good price.. tone offers it for a little over 200 iirc.. but you can get tone's hitch for 179 exactly.. harder to install.. but oh so pretty, and he has tested it at 5000 lbs
I don't know which Curt hitch you are using, but mine came powdercoated and so far exhibits absolutely no signs of rust. You do lose a wee bit of departure angle with the hitch, but as etlsport mentioned, I'd rather mess up a replaceable hitch than my hard to get cladding. If you do the install yourself, you will have to take off the rear cladding and there is about a 99% chance you are going to have to open up some already existing holes inside the rear frame area to get the hardware for the hitch installed. It is a little troublesome. I bought mine from etrailer.com for 164.95 with $0.99 shipping. You have probably looked at the one Tone carries as well which is really cool because it goes inside the rear cladding and sits up a little higher, therefore giving you back that departure angle and being stealthy to boot. It really matters what you are going to do with it. There are pros and cons of both methods, but personally, if you plan on doing any lifting, you gain the departure angle right back if going with a Curt hitch, and you don't have to cut up your cladding IMHO.
I would check out Tone's hitch if I were you. The only down side to his hitch is that you have to remove the cladding to install it. Sounds like you have to do that with the Curt model as well - so the down side is equal. On the plus side, the hitch from Tone looks factory and doesn't hang down. I've seen pictures of the Curt/U-haul model, and they don't do anything for the looks of the VX. As far as cutting the cladding, once you reinstall it over the hitch you can't tell that it was cut. The cut out area is very small.
I have the dylan hitch . It appears to be the same as the curtis model and the same one uhaul sells. It is a sturdy hitch. I do not think it looks as bad as some have said. It does protect the rear cladding. If you would like to see on installed let me know. I would definetly get it coated with something ,the salt up here does a number on the hitch. I would get it coated with the bed liner stuff. shawnQuote:
Originally Posted by blacksambo
http://www.vehicross.info/gallery/da...bs/64boat4.jpg
http://www.vehicross.info/gallery/da...bs/64boat2.jpg
Thank you all, a real education.