Pilot Stainless Steel Trailer Hitch Receiver Step with LED Lights Review

Review of the Pilot Stainless Steel Trailer Hitch Receiver Step with LED Lights

Bob here at etrailer.com and today you're going be taking a look at the Pilot Automotive Trailer Hitch Receiver Step.Now this is going to make it really easy to get in and out of the back hatch, or if you've got a truck and you need to get into the tailgate area, or maybe even you just need to wash your car. It's going to make it a lot easier to get up to those high areas, give us a nice step so we can wash the top of our car, or get whatever we need.What's really going to set this step apart compared to all the other ones on the market is the fact that it's going to have an integrated LED strip in there, so not only is it going to give us that step to make it easier to access certain areas, it's also going to protect our rear bumper, one, because the step itself is going to prevent anything from hitting our bumper first, but also it's going to give drivers behind us a warning if we're breaking or we have our taillights on.Now as you can see when I have my headlights on, my tail lights are illuminated, our step is going to illuminate. But also when we turn our turn signal, we can see that that's going to blink as well and that doesn't matter either direction, the whole step is going to blink with our blinkers, and whenever we hit our brakes, we can see that the step's going to brighten up the intensity as well, so all the drivers behind us will see that and there's no mistaking that there's either brake lights, taillights, or a turn signal going on.Now obviously if since we have a light on the back of our step here, we're getting need to get power in the signals to turn them on, but the nice thing about our step is that it's not going to require any kind of cutting or splicing at all. It's going to actually plug directly into an existing four pole wiring, that way you'll get the same signals a trailer would and we'll have all of our lights right at the back of our step.Now, our hitch step is going to work with inch and a quarter and two inch hitches like we have here. I'll go ahead and pull the pin and clip out. I do want to mention that the pin and clip are not included and you will need to provide either a pin and clip or a locking device to secure everything.But if I pull my step out, we can see that there's actually a sleeve that fits right over and that's where we're going to get that instrument quarter and two inch receivers.

You'll notice that we have multiple holes in both of the shanks. That way in case your hitch sticks in a little farther, you can have your step come out or if it doesn't stick out too far and you want your step a little closer to the car, you can make those adjustments by lining up the different holes for the hitch pins.Now like most accessories, if you don't have any anti-rattle, it is going to move around a bit. However, they do provide us with a couple of shims in our kit. The larger one's going to be for the two inch, and the smaller one's going to be for the inch and a quarter.Z And you can see it has a small taper at the end here, and basically what you do is you're just going to put the shim in, you press it in place, and there is some double-sided sticky tape at the bottom, so once you figure out where you want it and press it down, and you can see if we press this in hard enough, it'll take a lot of that slack and slop out and it will tighten everything up.The total width of our step is going to be 18 inches wide, and the tube itself is going to be three inches in diameter, and the construction of our step is going to be made out of a stainless steel, so we know it's going to withstand all the elements and be very durable.Now the step on top here is going to be made out of a high intensity plastic. It is going to be textured so we can make sure that we have a secure footing anytime we step on our step.Now our step is going to be able to support up to 350 pounds, but you do want to double check your hitch because you don't want to exceed the ton weight rating.So if you're in a situation where you need to reach something high on your vehicle, maybe you're using your roof rack, maybe you just need to reach into your bed of your truck, or anything like that, our step is going to make it a lot easier to access those things higher up, all while making it more safe for us to drive our vehicle, because it's going to protect our bumper and allow all the drivers to know exactly what's going on.But that'll finish up your look at the Pilot Automotive Hitch Step..