etrailer | 2016 Jeep Compass Curt Trailer Hitch Receiver: Complete Installation

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Today on our 2016 Jeep Compass, we're going to take a look at and also show you how to install the Curt Custom Fit Class 3 Trailer Hitch Receiver. This offers the 2" x 2" opening. Its part number is C13081. Here's what our hitch is going to look like installed. As you can see, it's really clean looking. Our main cross tube completely hidden behind our fascia area there. Really simply little area here that we trim out to give it a little bit of clearance. You'll see it's going to come out here to our 2" x 2" receiver tube opening.

Nice reinforcement collar around the end here. It's got the flush appearance, which I happen to like. You'll see we're going to be tucked in underneath our bumper just slightly, so we're not going to have to worry about bumping into it or anything like that. Safety chain connection points here are going to be of a rolled steel style. Give us plenty of room to get our chains connected.

This is a Class 3 hitch, it's 00:00:57 extremely versatile. There's tons of different accessories that can fit in here. The hitch is going to offer a 400 pound tongue weight rating. That's the maximum downward force we can put here at our receiver tube opening. It gives us a 4000 pound pound gross trailer weight rating. That's the total weight our trailer and anything that we might load up on it.

It does not offer a weight distribution rating, so we won't want to use it with weight distribution set ups. With that being said, Curt will recommend the use of the stabilization strap for anythign that would be a non-wheeled load, so anything but a trailer like a bike rack or a cargo carrier. Of course, we do want to check the owner's manual on the Compass. We need to see what it's rated for towing wise. We can just go off of whichever of those numbers are the lowest. A couple measurements are going to be helpful in selecting your ball mount, bike rack, or even hitch cargo carrier.

We'll be from the ground to the inside top edge of our receiver tube opening we've got about 14 1/4". Then, from the center of our hitch pin hole to the outermost edge of our bumper, it's about 6". To begin our installation, we need to take out a small area of the fascia, just to allow for the shank of the hitch to rest in place there. We need to first mark our center which is going to be about 7". From the outside of these rivets it's 14", so if you split that that's about 7". We're going to make our marks here from that center mark. We need to go about 2 3/4" so we'll be about 1 3/8" from each side here. Now, we're going to measure up from this rear edge rearward here. We need to go 2 9/16" which is just about a 1/16" past this bend. We're just going to use that bend for reference, cut right along that edge. We can always take out more if we need to. Then, we'll kind of mark it out as squarely as we can for it being on a curved surface here. Now we'll begin trimming this out. We can always take out more so we'll err on the side of too little first. Now we can use a razor blade here. You can also use like a rotary tool to cut this out. Just a pretty soft material, so it's easy enough to do by hand. Now, as an option you can lower down the exhaust. I recommend doing it. It just gives you some extra room to work. We're going to use a inaudible 00:03:48 strap to give us some support up here in the front and then we'll remove a couple hangers here in the rear. Here on the driver's side it's kind of up on the front corner of the rear exhaust section here and it's going to be on the opposite side or closer to the rear here on the passenger side. Little bit of spray lubricant there usually makes these pretty easy to pop off. Just kind of pry bar or big screw driver in behind them. That should be good. Now it's time to get our hardware pre-positioned. You'll see I'm going to take the long bolt. We need to place a flat washer on and then in our frame rail there are going to be holes that pass from the outside to the inside. We're going to place a bolt in each one. You'll see where it comes out here on the inside of the frame rail. Now, we're just going to push them back to where they're sitting even. We'll go over and do the same thing for the driver's side. Those attachment points will be in the exact same location. Now we'll grab a 10 millimeter socket. We're going to just pull this heat shield down temporarily. It's held in place with 4 fasteners. We can set that aside. Now we're ready to get our hitch lifted up into position. We're going to be careful as we guide it up. You can see once it gets on top of that exhaust as long as you've got a strap pretty much supports it for you. Watch the evac canister down here o