I dont think many people have trailer hitches installed on their cars. Anyway, in preparation for this sunday's parade and for other reasons (motorcycle, trailer, bike rack etc) I bought a Hidden Hitch 1 1/4" class 1 hitch today http://www.hiddenhitch.com/Products/...?HitchID=60945 . i was lucky that I was able to find one in stock since these guys arent too popular. This model is the no drill model. Anyway, the instructions are fairly straight forward- or so I thought. Remove the 2 tow hooks, and then one of the muffler hangers. Replace the hooks with the hitch. 4 bolts on the left and 3 on the right, with one of those bolts with an extra step. This extra step was to "fish though" a bolt with a reinforcer plate (i know this is hard to picture) through the right unibody frame.

Well waht was supposed to be a 20 minute install turned into 3+ hours of swearing, and I'm still not done. That reinforcer plate and fish thru is almost impossible to do. To make matters worse, I wind up stripping one of the other bolts on the right side. So this leaves me 4 bolts on the left, and only 1 bolt on the right hand side. This is not good. What I plan to do, is to drill out the stripped welded nut from the unibody frame. Then, I will use a U bolt (like the ones on trailing arms of the addco RSB) and connect both of the remaining holes together. I got this idea from my old Camry's trailer hitch which used the U bolts.

Another problem I ran into was the muffler. I'm running an OE muffler with a 4" tip. The unfortunate part is my tip is too big to clear the frame of the tow hitch. So now, I have to trim down the back side of the chrome tip. What a pain.

Yet one more problem is my pedaling bike rack is not long enough to clear the maxima's extended bumper. This shouldnt be a big deal, seeing as I just have to get an extension.

My car is pretty much tow ready anyway. I've already got the home made heavy duty motor mounts, the ACT racing clutch, and a cryogenically treated transmission. That and I only tow once in a blue moon, so reliability shouldnt be an issue here.

But despite the short comings I can't wait to get this thing on. You really cannot notice the thing is even on the car at all. The fframe part is higher then the spare tire well and sits above the bumper cover so most of it is concealed. Although it adds more weight to the rear, my car will have more utility then it did before!

 

that's quality dude...just make sure somebody doesn't steal ONE of your clear corners!!!!!!!

 

Hey I feel for you, I spent almost 5 hours last nite taking a hitch off my Max. The bolts were all rusted and I managed to get all off except two and had to grind them off, dirty work. Darn thing must weigh 80 lbs you could have had it for free. It is hidden also and snakes around the muffler tip. Anyway I am now hitchless and should take at least a second of the my quarter time.