Westin PRO TRAXX 5 Hitch Step Review

Products Featured in this Video

Westin PRO TRAXX 5 Hitch Step for 2" Hitches - 27" Wide - Polished Stainless Steel

1 reviews

Code: W76TD

Price:  $179.99

• Hitch Step
• Fixed Step
• Standard Step

• 2 Inch Hitch
• 27 Inch
• Stainless Steel
• Westin

Polished stainless steel hitch step slides into your 2" hitch receiver providing easy access to your truck bed, ladder rack, or roof rack. Raised tread helps prevent your feet from slipping. Includes anti-rattle bracket.

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Review of the Westin PRO TRAXX 5 Hitch Step

What's up, everybody It's AJ with etrailer.com. Today, we're gonna be checking out the Westin Pro Traxx 5. So it's gonna be a hitch-mounted step with an anti-rattle built in. So this is gonna be able to help you reach those items that are a little difficult sometimes. Instead of climbing up on your bumper and all that, you can just hop up here and grab your cooler. Let's check it out.

Right away, I wanna go over how it feels to be on it, because if there's a step, you wanna use it all the time and be surefooted about it. So I can say just stepping on there, it's fine and pretty sturdy, but when you go to shift your weight, it does move on the hitch a little bit. It's got that anti-rattle bolt at the bottom, and we tightened up pretty good, but it didn't seem like it was gonna help that side-to-side movement. I think it's just 'cause it's a longer step than some of them, so there's more on the sides than normal. Sometimes it's like a concentrated, just one small piece, so there's not that much shifting, but because this one is like a tube step design, it's gonna shift a little bit.

So just be prepared when you step up there that it will move, and then your second foot, it won't move as much. Looking down here at the anti-rattle device, this is a piece that's added onto the step. So you have three points where you can run this bolt in, and it helps stabilize the step. And you have three holes in the shank here to help line that up, too. So just to try something different, I used this one here to line up with the lip of the hitch, thinking that maybe there'd be more bolt pushing up against the hitch helping to stabilize it, and it didn't really make much of a difference.

It still goes back and forth. And don't over-tighten it either 'cause as you start to tighten that bolt, it just kind of walks across the hitch and scars that up. So make sure it just gets nice in tension and puts a little pressure on there, and then don't torque it down anymore. You can see as I tighten it down, it starts to walk. What I mean by that, it shifts over to the side.

So that's when I'm gonna stop tightening it down. That's gonna be as much anti-rattle as we get. Now, it sounds like we we're kind of trashing the anti-rattle bolt, but it does help out. So it might not help out as much when my whole body weight's on there and I'm shifting back and forth, it's gonna 'cause it to move a little, but it is gonna help you out when you're grow on the road. You can see me trying to shake. I can shake a little bit, but the road travel It's not gonna move or vibrate, so you're not gonna hear it in the hitch. And that's also pretty helpful. One of the nice things with this being made by Westin is that Westin also makes rounded Nerf bars for the side of your vehicle. And this is what they kind of look like. So it's matching that aesthetic. So I like that part, that if you wanna keep it matching around your vehicle, you can because some of the other hitch mount steps out there are just like a flat piece of metal, which, there's not a whole lot to that, and if you leave it on there all the time, it might not look the best. Maybe you want it to match your vehicle, and you can get it to do that. They also make an HDX step, as well. That matches the HDX running boards on the side of the vehicle, too. So if you look into that, if that's the style you have, if you wanna keep everything matching, it's gonna look nice. Let's talk about the grip on the step here. We're gonna measure it out. Looks like it's gonna be 4 1/4 inches wide, and then let's go length. Side to side, it's gonna be about 14 inches. So that's how much grip you have to step on here. So that's kind of bigger than some of the other steps out there, although it's not too aggressive. This is just kind of a plastic. So I think if you hopped up there with muddy boots or it was raining, it could still be a little slick 'cause it's not super aggressive, but it's still something to grip onto your shoes. This portion of the step here is gonna be stainless steel. So it's gonna be resistant to corrosion and rust. So that's nice, especially if you wanna leave it on here all the time, you have to worry about it being exposed to the elements. Along with leaving it here all the time, it does not come with a pin and clip. You'll have to get one of those separately. So I recommend getting an etrailer hitch pin lock. That way, you can put that in there and lock the step to your hitch, and nobody can mess with it when you're not around. Overall, I think it's a nice thing to have in your hitch, especially when you got a cargo carrier and you throw things on the roof. It's far easier to step on that and have sure footing to get your hands up there and get whatever you need rather than trying to stand on one leg on the bumper or trying to hold onto something here on the back while you're trying to reach. This really helps you with that. Now, if you tow a lot and you're using ball mounts a lot, it might not be as useful for you 'cause you're gonna have to swap out that accessory constantly. So maybe you go with the channel mounted ball mount with the step on top from Bulletproof, and that might be the better solution for you. But for me, I think it's gonna work. Well, I think that does it. Thanks for hanging out. I hope this helped..