This may be of some interest to a few of you, who may own jet ski's, motorcycles, bikes or just would like to tow a light trailer from time to time. I put on a Hidden Hitch (www.hiddenhitch.com) 60945 hitch. The Maxima is capable of taking a class 1 hitch. While the hitch can take 2000lb/200lb trailer weight/tongue weight, the owner's manual states that the car is capable of 1000lb/100lb trailer/tongue. I choose the 60945 hitch because is a drill less design, that uses existing bolts and holes to fit on, and it has the detachable 1 1/4" receiver that can be used with a bike rack with an extension. It weighs I'd estimate at 30-40 pounds, so it will increase the weight on the car, but it isn't too bad. When the bar and ball are not installed, the hitch is almost completely invisible, except for the receiver poking out from where under the license tag is. Put on the included cover and it almost vanishes. Reese, Dalan and Draw-Tite also make hitches.

Installation was fairly straight forwards, needing 12 mm, 14 mm, 17mm sockets (6 point) and a torque wrench. Remove the 2 rear tow hooks, and let the muffler hang down. Then remove the right muffler bracket. The hitch will replace one of the muffler hangers. Bolt the hitch into place, and then torque it down. Reinstall the muffler and thats it. One step did give me a pain though, on the right side of the hitch, you need to fish through a carrage bolt with a rectangular reinforcer plate through the unibody frame rail of the car. It provides you with 3 sets of these including the bolt feeders, as the 00-02 maxima's need 3, while the 95-99 only need 1. I wound up accidentally stripping one of the right hand welded nuts for the tow hooks in the unibody frame rail. What I wound up doing, was to drill out the nut entirely, use touch up paint on the open wound, and then fish another bolt with reinforcer plate through.

Fishing the bolt and reinforcer plate through is kinda stickly, but its pretty easy once I figured out the trick. Open up the trunk, and unbolt the 2 14 mm bolts that are on the trunk floor covered under 2 plastic pop covers. This will give you increased clerance. Then, while you are under the car, either use your foot or jack to hold the bumper (the actual steel bumper) up, now that the bolts are no longer holding them in place. This will prevent you from alot of swearing.

For those with aftermarket mufflers the hitch may not clear the muffler tip. My OEM muffler has a 4" tip put on by me, and I had to slightly modify the tip. The tip contacted the hitch by maybe 1/8".

I also added large washers in addition to the ones provided with the hitch, as I found the included washers were getting bent in the hitch slots.

My car had no problem towing a trailer. Where it could use work was the suspension. My stock SE's rear suspension (with probably blown struts) had a difficult time dealing with the trailer on the highway over bumps. Stiffer springs and shocks could definately help. My car was pretty trailer ready, mostly from getting it race ready. It had performance mods to increase the torque and horsepower. It also has an ACT clutch and Quaife differential to get off the line. I have a polyurethane motor mount to hold the engine down in place. The rear sway bar helps keep the back end control. My transmission parts are cryogenically treated for strength. While I am not yet lowered, a aftermarket suspension will definately help as well, with stiff springs and shocks. Automatics should consider a transmission cooler.

As for lights, the installation was also pretty straight forwards. I used a universal wiring harness kit from my old Toyota Camry. It has 5 inputs, brake, tail/park, right turn, left turn and ground. Ground is self explanatory. The others, just identify which wires go to which bulb and splice into the wires using tap slices. I recommend splicing at the left tail light, since all the wires including the wire to the right turn wire are all there. If you have your front corners rewired (97-99 models), you may need to increase the "tail" fuse from 7.5 to 10 amps. I have not had any problems with mine. Since I only use my trailer once in a while, I opted to keep the wiring in the trunk and run it out the trunk lid when needed.

I consider this a wonderful "bolt on mod" that increases the usefulness and utility of your car.

 

I have a nitch on my car, I forgot who made it, but it was a pain in the *** the get it on. You had to fish a nut into a 1" whole that you drill in the rear bumper...took my dad several hours, I didn't help much, it was a bday present for me and he agreed to do most of the instalation work.

I don't even own a ball attachement for it, I only use it for carying my bike