Curt Trailer Hitch Receiver - Custom Fit - Class I - 1-1/4"

Video Transcript for Curt Trailer Hitch Installation - 2016 Volkswagen Golf

Ryan: Hey everyone. Ryan here at etrailer.com. Today on our 2016 Volkswagen Golf, we're going to be taking a look at and showing you how to install the CURT Class 1 Trailer Hitch Receiver. One of the things I really like about this hitch is that, for the most part, it's going to be completely hidden. The only thing you're going to see is your receiver tube. And since this does have a high gloss black powder coat finish, it actually matches the bottom of our bumper pretty good.

It's going to work really well for those bike racks and cargo carriers, which in turn will free up space on the inside of your car and you're not going to have to worry about using a roof rack and reaching up high to get your accessories on and off.Our receiver tube opening is going to be an inch and a quarter by an inch and a quarter. It's also going to have a reinforced collar for extra strength. And in my opinion, it makes it look a little bit better too. Now it is going to have a half-inch size pin hole. Now, keep in mind, it does not come included with a pin and clip, but if you need one, you can find it here at etrailer.

It has loop style safety chain openings, which aren't huge, but they are big enough and open enough to use just about any size hook that we might have.Now, as far as the weight capacities go, it's going to have a 200 pound maximum gross tongue weight rating. That's going to be the amount of weight pushing down on our hitch, so it's going to work good for those one and two bike racks. As far as the maximum gross trailer weight rating goes, it's going to be 2,000 pounds, the amount of weight pulling on our hitch. So, that's the weight of your trailer plus anything you might have on it. Now, keep in mind it is always a good idea to check with your owner's manual to make sure your Golf can pull that much weight.

And if you do plan on doing some light duty towing, I'd recommend picking up some trailer wiring. That way, the lights on your trailer will work as you go down the road, keeping you safe and legal.Now I'm going to give you a couple of measurements. These are going to help you when figuring out which hitch-mounted accessories to use. From the ground to the top inside edge of our receiver tube opening, it's going to be about nine inches, so more than likely you're going to need to get a ball mount with a rise. From the center of the hitch pin hole, to your rear bumper, that's going to be about two and a half inches.

You're going to use that to figure out if any folding accessories you might have can be stored in the upright position without contacting the bumper.Now, one thing I do want to point out; since our hitch does hang down a little bit and our Golf sits pretty low as it is, you're going to want to be careful when you're going up and down those steep driveways. Now, since our hitch is hidden, the installation is going to be a little more involved, but it's really not all that difficult. Speaking of which, let's go ahead and do it together now.To begin our install, we're going to be working on the underside along the bottom edge of our bumper.Aalong the bottom edge of our bumper, we're going to remove four plastic screws. We're going to use a T-15 Torx bit to do that. We'll have one here, here, here, and over here. Now, here in our wheel wells we're going to need to remove four T-25 Torx bit screws just like this. We'll have one here, here, here, and right up in this area.With the wheel well liner out of the way. We're going to need to remove one more T-25 Torx bit screw. Now, this one is going to be a little tricky to see, but it's actually holding the corner of our rear fascia up to the quarter panel. It's going to be right here. Now, we're going to need to remove our tail lights, so we'll start by opening up our rear hatch. On each side, we're going to have a small access panel. We just peel it back and underneath it, we're going to remove this plastic wing nut. Once that's out, set it off to the side.Come to our tail light, carefully pull outward, and then we can disconnect it from the electrical. It's going to be a red tab. Push it back and that will expose a black center tab. Push that down and remove the white. Before we start to take our rear fascia off. I went ahead and just put some masking tape on our quarter panel. That way we don't have to worry about scratching our pane. To take your fascia off, we're going to break free each side starting here at our wheel wells and work our way towards the center. So I'll grab the bottom of it and behind it, there's going to be a small black tab and I'm just going to use a plastic trim panel tool. You could use a flat head or whatever fits down in there. You kind of push that tab down, and pull the fascia towards you at the same time. Kind of just work it up. Those are the tabs that our fascia is connected to that we're pushing down on. Same deal up here on the taillight pocket. Some more of the tabs. Once you get to about this point, go do the same thing over on the other side.Now, with both of our corners started, you can grab the center of our bumper, kind of work at up and down, pulling towards you. Slowly pull it back. If you have any electrical wiring, you're going to need to disconnect it. Now we can take our fascia and set it off to the side. Now we need to remove our bumper beam over here on the passenger side. It's going to be held in place with four 13 millimeter bolts. Now, on this top one, in the corner here, what I like to do is just take that bolt out and then just thread it in a couple turns by hand. That way when we remove the rest of the bolts, our bumper beam doesn't fall down and it's a little more easy to manage.Over here on the driver's side, we're just going to have three of those same bolts. How we can hold our bumper beam. We'll take out those two hand tight bolts and pull it away from the car. Now the attachment points that are going to hold the hitch into place are going to be our factory weld nuts that held our bumper beam in place. And how this is going to work, we're going to put our hitch on the rear bulkhead here, line the holes up with our factory weld nuts, and then we're actually going to put the bumper beam over the hitch. So, our hitch will be sandwiched between the car and the bumper beam. Now, the hardware that we're going to use to secure it, we're going to to take our included bolt, a split lock Washer, and a flat washer. We'll put that through the bumper beam, the hitch and thread it into the body of the car.So now, we can take our hitch and our bumper beam, hold it in place and get our hardware started. With all of our hardware in place and hand tight, now we can go ahead and snug it down. Now we can use a torque wrench to tighten our hardware down to the specification in our instructions. Now we're going to need to trim our fascia according to the diagram in our instructions. And I went ahead and drew that area out here where I'm going to trim. Now, to cut it, I'm going to use Dremel tool. However, the plastic's relatively thin, so you could use a utility knife or even a pair of snips.Now we can take our fascia and put it back in place. and that'll do it for our look at and our installation of the CURT Class 1 Trailer Hitch Receiver on our 2016 Volkswagen Golf.