I've been posting about a trailer hitch etc for my Chrysler - GAP travel related.
I really like the OEM Chrysler system as it totally hides up under the plastic bumper cover and you don't see it.
I ordered it February 13, the dealer guy says there's none in stock anywhere and 19 people on the waiting list but says he's sure Chrysler has them being made so I go ahead with it.
A month goes by, I call and no update but am told give it another week or so. I do.
I call back he checks, still nothing in the system, he said he'll call me back. He called a day later and informs me he found out the story from HQ - the company that makes these hitches for Chrysler (Magnum, 300's and Charger) went out of business - there are none in the USA. He said he has an idea and will call back tomorrow, he does.
He had a bright idea that Canada uses different part numbers, he tracks it down and finds out there are 4 of the hitches in Canada!!! So he orders one, takes a week-10 days. I call 10 days later and he checks, he can see it they shipped it late in Canada, they actually shipped from Toronto on Friday April 6 and should be here early next week.
He calls me Friday and says UPS said they (the dealer) denied the shipment - which is BS - its a Chrysler dealer and they get deliveries constantly. Anyway he says he called Toronto, they had another and he arranged for shipping overnight from Canada - they (the dealer) will eat the shipping cost. He said it was Friday afternoon so don't expect it Saturday but Monday or Tuesday.
He called me this afternoon (Monday) it came but the box is somewhat crushed and torn but they accepted it anyway.
I run down (it's 4pm now) and sure enough it's all there but the bolt bag is torn and the instructions are torn up too (Andrews pipes were missing bits too - is there some higher force at work here? No big deal on the instructions since I downloaded the PDF from Chrysler - but it "looks" to be all there. One thing I notice is the receiver is different. The one I "thought" was coming was an angled from underneath and up to the outside of the bumper - a single unit that's almost a U shape. But it's not - its an L shape (middle bit in the photo below). So I need 'another" regular receiver to go into that making it three parts - The Hitch receiver, the L adapter and a regular Drop (or in my case Raise) bit.
So I get home and notice one of the special nut-on-a-stick holders is missing, one large high-strength bolts (of 6) and smaller bolt are gone... So I run down to Ace hardware (these are large metric) and at the checkout I realize my wallets at home. Run home, run back and run home again, by now it's getting dark.
Doing it myself saves $164 bucks and the instructions don't look too bad. Getting the rubber hangars off the exhaust and frame was the worst without jacking up the car which I did not want to deal with so fat belly me was squished underneath - cars today don't have good lift points or places to get jack stands under.
But I manage to drop the exhaust enough to give a little access to the frame holes, of course they're full of road crud so had to clean them out, still was a work-out on my air-ratchet running the bolts through before trying to mount everything up.
So I need to make a Nut-on-a-stick, it holds a nut inside the frame rail - there's three of these total, very tricky to get these through the hole and over the bolt hole itself... Plus trying to hold the very heavy hitch in place... There's 6 holes on each side and I have 5 of the high-strength bolts and the standard one from Ace hardware. Torque was 75lbs per instructions - of course I just gave as much on the softer bolt as I thought it would hold on the torque wrench - not even close to 75 lbs but it'll all be OK.
The factory wiring harness is great though - it plugs into the taillight harness (no cutting) and has a big sealed grommet where you knock out a fill plug underneath the trunk. The hitch also has a great holder for the flat-4 plug with a cover - up underneath on the hitch - out of the way.
I still need to do the wiring - and then measure the height so I get the correct receiver tomorrow, they're usually pretty cheap anyway.
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