Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I bought this hitch for my 2001 Tribute DX 4-cylinder. I have been ogling a hitch like this for over a year, but they were always too expensive, well over $200 - until this one, with free shipping and no taxes to boot. Quite a deal! Very solid, heavy duty construction, protected with thick, hard powder coating. It is far more heavy duty than my vehicle is rated for, so it won't be the hitch that ever fails.
Installation was very easy, and can be done by one person, although two persons would make it a little easier. I did it by myself, and I am a few days short of 70 as I write.
Time for a mechanic, with a little experience and all the right tools at his fingertips, is probably 30 minutes, or even less. I took a lot longer, maybe 1-1/2 hours -- mostly because I had to get up and down so often to see what I wanted to do, and to get another tool than the one I guessed at, and also it takes me a lot longer and more effort just to get up once I get down on the creeper.
I'll relate my steps, because the instructions are a little brief.
1. The first thing I did was to do is raise the back end of my Tribute about 6 inches or so. I did that by backing onto two 2"x6" boards, and then the edge of the garage floor has another 1-1/2" lip above the driveway apron. That gave me plenty of room to maneuver on my creeper under the vehicle, and I could lay the hitch across my chest for dry-fit and for installing it.
2. The next thing I did was to slide under the vehicle to determine if I had weld nuts (I didn't), whether I had to do any drilling (I did not), if I had a heat shield (I did), and exactly where the holes were to fasten the hitch.
3. I didn't do this, but if you have a heat shield, before you take it off, dry-fit the hitch against the heat shield, and outline the cutout you'll have to make on the heat shield with a black marking pen, so you'll know what to cut on the heat shield once you remove it, in order to reinstall it later. There are four 10mm bolts or nuts that hold the heat shield on, but after you make your cutout, there will be only three.
3. I didn't have any weld nuts, so my next step after removing the heat shield was to install carriage bolts with a square-hole spacer (three on each side.) This was surprisingly easy to do with the included fish wire. The fish wire has a coiled end for threading the wire onto a bolt. Only screw on the fish wire for a two threads, as it is very hard to get off, especially if you thread it all the way on (as I did). The bolt will not fall off the fish wire. I did not have to drill any holes, nor did I have to enlarge any to get the carriage bolts and spacers in.
4. The next step is to carefully lift the hitch into place and thread on the nuts. Be careful not to shove any of the bolts back up into the frame (as I did) or you'll have a devil of a time fishing them out. If you are doing this by yourself, it might be a good idea to tie a string on each bolt (or shove on a length of tubing) to prevent them from getting pushed back into the hole, until you have both sides on at least one bolt.
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