etrailer | How to Install the Curt Trailer Hitch Receiver on a 2017 Toyota RAV4

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Hello everybody, Clayton here at etrailer.com. Here at etrailer.com, we install, test and review a lot of different products to help you as a customer make a more educated decision before your purchase. And today we're gonna be working on a 2017 Toyota RAV4, and we're gonna be taking a look at and I'll be showing you how to install a class 3 hitch by curt. This is what our hitch is gonna look like installed. As you can see the only visible part is gonna be our receiver tube. So our cross tube is gonna be completely concealed and it's gonna look nice and factory.
And you might be looking to add a trailer hitch to your RAV4 for a few different reasons. Maybe you're wanting to test some jet skis to the lake for the weekend, or you wanna use a cargo carrier to get some of that extra cargo out of the back of your RAV4 making more room for your passengers or you're trynna load your bikes onto the roof or trynna cram them into the back and you wanna use a bike rack. This hitch is gonna work great for all those options. Like I said, this is a class 3 hitch, so that means we're gonna have a two inch by two inch receiver tube opening. And this plays well with a lot of different accessories.
Our hitch is gonna offer us a five, eight inch pin hole. As you can see our pin fits through there just fine. You wanna keep in mind though, the pin and clip do not come included with this kit but you can find one here at etrailer.com. We're gonna have rolled style safety chain loops. They look really nice and they function just as well.
You can use all different kinds of safety chains, so you're not gonna have to change them out to work with your trailer. Our hitch is gonna be a steel construction, so it's gonna hold up really well for a long time but it also offers us a really nice black powder coat finish to help resist rust and corrosion. One thing I really like is this reinforced collar on the outside, it just adds a little bit of stability and it makes it look finished. Now we can go ahead and get a few measurements for you. The measurement from the ground.
So the upper most part of our receiver tube is gonna be right at 15 inches. And the measurement from our pin hole to the outermost part of our fascia is gonna be about two and a half inches. You just wanna keep that number in mind for any folding accessories to make sure they're not gonna make contact with your rear fascia. And as far as our weight capacities are concerned, we are gonna have a 3,500 pound towing capacity. Keep in mind that the weight of the trailer and the load on the trailer. Then our tongue weight rating is gonna be 350 pounds and that's gonna be 350 pounds pushing straight down on your receiver tube. And one feature I really like about this hitch is that it does work with your kick sensor. Our vehicle does not have a kick sensor but if you do have one at home, it'll work just fine. This hitch is gonna offer some great features allowing us to take any of our toys with us, wherever we're going. Now, in terms of installation, getting this installed, isn't too bad. There's no welding or drilling, just minor trimming of plastic components. With that being said, I'll walk you through how to get it installed now. To start our installation, we're gonna be trimming our fascia. We have a diagram in our instructions but the diagram is gonna tell us to go four inches from the center point right here, two inches on either side. We're gonna go an inch and three quarters deep. Now we're just gonna turn this with some 10 snips. You can kinda pull down on the fascia just to give you a little bit more leverage. Then you saw I just kinda scored that plastic with my utility knife. We can actually just take our fascia to kinda bend it on that line. That's gonna help us kinda break this off and then come back and cut it with that knife. We're now ready to remove our underbody panel on the driver's side. We're gonna do this with a small flat blade screwdriver and a trim panel tool. Kinda going to come into that clip. Stick your screwdriver under there, and then turn it. We can grab that trim panel tool, and pull out our plastic connector. We'll have one more connector back here where you use a 10 millimeter socket to take that off. With that clip removed, we can now set our panel off to the side. We're now gonna grab a 17 millimeter socket and remove our hardware for our tow hook. This will not be reinstalled. We now need to lower down our exhaust. We're gonna support it using a Cambuckle strap. You can find Cambuckle straps here at etrailer if you don't have one. I'm gonna just loop this down around our coil and then run that over to

[@noquestions7443]

This was the most neat professional installation

[@etrailer]

Thank you for the feedback! Check out the following link for more information on this Curt Trailer Hitch. www.etrailer.com/Trailer-Hitch/Curt/C13406.html

[@angriestsheep3452]

This was a very informative and clear video. Thank you for the professionalism. The next part is for the algorithm: “Trailer Hitch Size: 2 Inch Hitch Opening Towing Capacity: 525 Pound Tongue Weight 3500 Pound Towing Weight Distribution Towing Capacity: 525 Pound Tongue Weight 4000 Pound Towing Trailer Wiring: 2017 Toyota RAV4 Trailer Wiring Features: This fully welded trailer hitch receiver bolts onto your vehicle's frame with no welding required. Matte black, powder coated steel is durable and corrosion resistant and creates a rugged look. Installation Notes: No drilling required for installation Underbody trim panel must be modified or trimmed if present Fits Hybrid models as well Hitch may interfere with the Hands-free Liftgate sensors and functionality may be very limited or possibly lost.”