Westin HDX Drop Hitch Step Review
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Review of the Westin HDX Drop Hitch Step
What's up everybody It's AJ with E Trailer dot com. Today we're gonna be checking out the Westin HDX step. It's a hitch mounted step so what it's gonna do is go in your hitch and attach there and help you get a step to get up onto your roof to grab your cooler or what else you ever left up here. It's just a nice way of doing it instead of trying to hop up on your bumper or find something else difficult to stand on. Let's check it out. First thing I wanna talk about with the step is how it feels when you're on it.
So right away it is kind of a narrow or shallow step. You can see not a lot of my foot makes it onto the step if I stood completely like this just kind of my toes. So you are kinda on your toes on this one, you can't get I'd have to turn my boot like that to get on there and kinda get better footing that way, but that's not exactly an easy way to stand. Also it's got the anti rattle in there, but as I shift around you can see it still moves around a little bit. It definitely helps it out but you can see it does shift, so be careful if you are trying to walk.
If you're looking up here at the roof and you're moving back and forth just know that it is gonna shift a little bit underneath you. Sticking with the step let's look at the plate that you step on. Let's get some measurements and see what you're working with here. So it's about four inches there. Four inches of width and then we'll go length, it looks like 16 inches there.
So that's how much space you have to step on. And like I said this here is a little closer than I'd like it so you don't really get your whole foot on there, but there is grip here at the bottom, I do appreciate that. You have these holes that's gonna help you grip onto the boots I could definitely feel that when I was up there. So if it does rain or it's a little bit muddy at least you have something kind of aggressive for your boot to latch onto. Underneath you'll see there is an anti rattle device here.
You have three spots you can use it with along with three adjustment points in the shank too. So when you get it lined up to your hitch you're gonna run down the bolt and it's gonna push up here on the bottom of your hitch. But just know that don't crank it down too much 'cause then this plate will still move back and forth and it kinda walks on us. So it walked a little bit here and you can see where it scratched on the bottom of the hitch. Not a huge deal, but just know that that's gonna happen. The anti rattle really does help with he up and down movement. You see it doesn't jump up and down a lot when I try and get it do there. Now it will go side-to-side but that's just gonna happen with how lightweight the step is and the hitch pin that's in there. But it is useful, it does keep that and it's gonna keep it quiet when you're going down the road too. Now the step itself this portion here is gonna be the stainless steel. And then the rest of it's gonna be a black powder coat finish so you know that you can leave it on the back here all the time and the elements aren't gonna get to it, it's not gonna rust or corrode on ya. Talk about the stainless steel, there is a different version of this that is gonna be all black powder coat finish. So you can check out on our website as well if that's more what you wanna go with with your vehicle. Another thing to consider is if you don't use your hitch all that much this step's gonna be good to help you reach anything you put on the roof all the time. But if you do tow things and use your hitch quite a bit you might be thinking you don't wanna swap this out all the time it'd be kinda inconvenient. Well BulletProof Hitches does make a ball mount that's like a channel ball mount and you can swap out the ball with other accessories. You could easily just swap out that one portion for the step or even in some instances you can put the step on top of the ball as long as there's no spacing and use 'em at the same time. So you're gonna hop up on that step and not sacrifice having to am I gonna leave the ball mount in there, am I gonna leave the step in there They can just both be in there at the same time and save you some time. One thing I do like is that the HDX step matches the HDX running boards, so if that's what you have on your vehicle this is gonna fit in just fine. I like that it will match here on the back step and the sides. Because so many times you go to get a hitch step it's just a flat piece of metal and it doesn't look like it goes with the vehicle. And if you're gonna leave it on there all the time you kinda want it to match what you got going with it. So if you have those running boards this is gonna fit in great. Overall I think it's gonna be a very helpful thing to have. I mean just using this step to get up here I got one hand on the basket to grab this cooler, I can easily do that, even have one more step up. Now it's gonna be a little bit more narrow. I could even climb all the way to the bumper with it just to help me out to get to that cooler. So it is definitely useful. I don't tow a whole bunch so this being on the back of the vehicle all the time would be just fine with me. Although I guess I would have to swap it out when I go to take my bike to the park. So I will have to pull it out and put it back in but it's not like it's that hard to do. You can just loosen it, leave it in the back of the vehicle and you're good to go. Now if you tow all the time I would look at that BulletProof Hitches channel mounted ball mount with the snap. That way you don't have to swap it out all the time. Well I think that does it. Thanks for hanging out, and I hope this helped..
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