When we bought our tow vehicle we didn’t think it was going to be so hard to make sure it would be ready to tow something!!
By October 2023 we had a travel trailer on order for a September 2024 delivery and we knew we were going to need a 7-pin connector on our tow vehicle. We soon learned there was a bit of a disconnect (irony) with the features available (or not) from Toyota and their vehicles with towing capacity. You see, although the Highlander’s towing specs met our requirements, the Highlander could not be supplied with a 7-pin connector. Huh? We would need to go ‘after market’ for the wiring. And the hitch. The hitch too?!?!
Well the hitch was more a function of the cars that were available at the time of purchase but yeah, we bought a Highlander as our tow vehicle and it didn’t come with either the wiring or the hitch.
Again, I won’t bore you with the car salesman stories…
As we saw it, there were a couple of ways to go getting a hitch for our Highlander. We could get a hitch that looked like it was put on after the car was already built or an OEM hitch. Anything other than the OEM hitch would have a significantly lower connection point to our trailer and would always look like an afterthought. Additionally, there were the sensors to consider.
The Highlander had sensors in the rear bumper which could open the hatch by merely swinging your leg under them. An OEM hitch would preserve this capability More importantly were the aesthetics of using the OEM hitch and the finished hitch height.
As encouraging as the YouTubers I watched may have been, there was no way I was going to attempt to install the Toyota OEM hitch myself. My local Toyota dealer would do the installation. Although not where I purchased the car (to get the color we wanted I had to travel out of state) this would be my dealer for warranty service. The hitch and installation was expensive to get done but at the end of the day we had an OEM hitch that looked like it was there from day one.
And a sticker indicating we now had 19 pounds less of ‘load carrying capacity’.
Really? 🤷
