It's a bit more hidden than I was expecting. Overall, looks good bud. Now only if the cruze had a 1500 pound towing capacity... I'd be all over it. I have a quad I use mainly for ice fishing season and a 5'x8' trailer that's just under 1500 pounds together. So it looks like I'm SOL. What do you plan to use it for?
I will use it with my trailer (5 * 9) to transport the lawnmower and wed eater to my other property.
I'll also use it to transport construction materials.
I always renovation projects.
Anything that does not exceed the 1000 pound trailer included
I'm interested in understanding just what the wiring was that you received with this Ebay link.
I ask, because the hitch is available for $20 less (w/ free shipping) than that link. If all you get is a connector with wire leads on it, I can pick that up locally for $7. It looks like you got a "T" connector you pluged inline with the tail lights though.
I haven't looked under the car yet, but I'd rather route the wiring from underneath, so that the wiring isn't coming through the trunk. I would think it would eventually get damaged that way, and my last car it wasn't hard to wire tap in the four wires that the trailer lights need.
It's plug and play, but then you have the wires running out through the closed trunk lid, right? From your pictures it appears that you are making the connection inside the trunk.
I'd rather make the connection inside the wheel well where the wires run up into the trunk, but I haven't looked there yet to see what the situation is. I'd prefer not to have the wiring flopping around on the painted bumper... much nicer install from the bottom, and routing along the hitch in my opinion.
After speaking with CURT Technical support I ordered hitch 11282 which is a unit to fit the Cruze and Verano. They have made two changes to this model vs. the model mentioned here.
They resized the hardware to 7/16" vs 1/2" so it all goes through the holes without enlargement
They also concealed the cross bar higher so you don't see it when looking at the rear of the car.
While the instructions say to lower the exhaust, I don't believe you have to do that with the Cruze. The Verano appears to have an additional muffler which would make exhaust lowering critical.
The hitch arrived yesterday. I'm working with the rear of the car on the ground, and I could dry fit it, and it looks like it fits without dropping exhaust.. (To be confirmed as soon as I get it installed.)
Does anyone who has installed Hitches have a trick for lifting over the exhaust pipe and installing the bolts? Getting another person is going to be a difficult issue for me. What tricks are people using?
I just completed this last night. Took me about 20 minutes to install and run the electrical cables. No drilling, splicing, or lowering the exhaust involved. Super simple. I purchased a Curt receiver on eBay for $165 with a wiring harness. I plan to use it for a small trailer (1000 lb capacity but mostly for hauling large hardware store items a few miles). The hitch is up and out of the way and definitely not an eyesore. I was even able to complete this while the car was in the driveway on level ground. Easiest and fastest hitch I have ever installed.
Update: I took my trailer out for a test drive with the new hitch... It tows beautifully. It's not a truck by any means, but it will haul lumber and plywood 3-4 miles every once and a while. The trailer is slightly narrower than the Cruze and the height of the trailer is slightly shorter than the height of the trunk. Great size for the Cruze in my opinion.
I just installed the CURT hitch onto my 2012 Cruze LS and I am going to use mostly as an EMERGENCY recovery point. From what I understand a Class III or IV hitch (trucks) is required for recovery situations but do you guys think I will have a problem being pulled STRAIGHT back from the hitch? I got stuck 5 or 6 times last winter mostly on icy hills and light snow. I'm not dumb enough to have someone YANK me out from a muddy ditch at an angle or something like that. Just a light pull straight back, I can't imagine that it would be any worse than the flimsy factory tow loops installed on one side of a frame rail on most imports. Hoping to never have to use it since I'm getting snow tires installed this year.
Quite honestly... I believe it was a trailer from Harbor Freight. My grandfather bought it and assembled it and rarely used it. I now have it and have put pressure treated sidewalls on it. It can just barely fit a piece of drywall, plywood, etc. because it has a 4x8 foot bed.
Also, if anyone does buy this trailer, pull the center hubs off (silver cap, just pull) and remove all of the grease. Replace this with some fresh stuff. Apparently this is the main complaint about some of these trailers. Nothing else that I have seen. When we checked the wheel bearing grease on mine, it looked like someone dropped a glob of grease on the ground and put it in anyways.
Honestly, any 4' wide trailer would work wonderfully for the Cruze. Mine just happens to be 4' x 8' which is great for hauling most anything I need right now. Looks like another member here has the same trailer I have too... just no side walls. - Link
It looks like the bumper on the RS is lower and would have to be modified to make a receiver fit. Anyone with an RS know how much lower it is? I have less than an inch of clearance, so based on what I've seen, I don't think it will fit without some sort of modification.
I contacted Curt on the application of an RS and they said no known issues that they were aware of. I do have the new model hitch from Curt but currently Im waiting for Curt to send me a new hitch. The hitch I received had chips in the coating. Im kinda upset with customer service from Curt since Ive been waiting 3 weeks for the new hitch. Did anyone else receive there hitch with scratches and chipped coating?
Mine came without any scratches that I am aware of... My hitch didn't come straight from Curt... so returning it probably wouldn't help anything. Was this something that primer and a little bit of black paint would have helped? Most of the hitch is out of sight... So protecting it should be the biggest worry with cosmetics as a second. I'm not sure how extensive the damage was though...
To the people that have the hitch what have you done for wiring? I purchased the curt unit myself, wanted the isolation the box should provide to keep my computer from getting burned up.
I did the same thing.. I believe that mine came from Curt as well. You just unplug wires going into each taillight and plug the T connector in between. I just zip tied everything in place when finished. The box in the kit has a sticky back, so I found a place that was out of the way of the trunk liner and stuck it there. Just remember to clean out your trunk before installing it because the side pieces need to fold in, the plastic trim at the rear of the trunk needs to come out, and the spare tire cover needs to come out. I ran my wire down through a rubber grommet at the rear of the tire well. Being that this is Michigan, that was pretty stupid. I don't use a trailer enough to justify having those wires hang in the ice, water, and salt. I will be relocating it and sealing up the hole I made. Just leave the wire coiled up with your spare tire and feed it through the trunk opening when you need it. Just don't close it in the latch.
I have a (stupid?) question about this hitch. The hitch has a weight carrying (towing) capacity of 2000 lbs, and a tongue weight capacity of 200 lbs. We know that the Cruze has a 1000 lb towing capacity, so the fact that the hitch can handle 2000 lbs doesn't matter. The towing capacity of a Cruze with this hitch (or any other hitch) is still 1000 lbs.
My question has to do with tongue weight. I have read that the rule of thumb is that tongue weight capacity is 10% of towing capacity, which would make the Cruze's tongue weight capacity 100 lbs according to the rule of thumb. However, I think that unlike towing capacity, the tongue weight capacity of the Cruze with this hitch would be 200 lbs, as it is rated. This spec has to do with the strength of the hitch, doesn't it? Shouldn't we be able to put up to 200 lbs of non-supported weight on this hitch?
I want to buy a cargo rack for my hitch, but if I can only safely put 42 pounds of gear on the rack (the rack weighs 58 pounds), I'll probably pass.
What do you think - 100 lbs, or 200 lbs for the tongue weight with the Curt hitch?
I have read that the rule of thumb is that tongue weight capacity is 10% of towing capacity, which would make the Cruze's tongue weight capacity 100 lbs according to the rule of thumb.
The hitch is rated for 200 lbs tongue weight. So putting a cargo rack on it shouldn't be a problem... depending on what you are carrying. The 1000/2000 lb limit only has to deal with the gross weight of the trailer and has no connection with a cargo rack. You should be completely fine putting 200 lbs on the hitch when not using a trailer.
I drove 50 miles with a set of four winter tires and steelies on my cargo carrier and had no problems whatsoever. I even jumped up and down on the cargo carrier and there was no issues. You would have no problem putting 100-150 pounds on the carrier. I also have the Curt hitch
Ok so it took Curt a month and a half to get me a replacement hitch sent do to the chipped coating and scratches on the first one I received. Now the replacement also has chipped coating too. I guess there product quality just isnt up to par. I cant understand why im getting chipped hitches but I guess I will just touch up the chips myself. Atleast the replacement hitch only has a few chips compared to the original one. Anyone else having damaged hitches new out of the box?
Short of spending quite a bit to have it re-powder coated, I guess you could try some of the plasti-dip stuff that people are using a lot on here. I've never used it, but it seems forgiving and easy to apply. As long as the chips aren't in areas where parts move, you could coat it with that and it might prevent any rust from forming.
New 2012 Cruz Eco owner here. Bought the Curt hitch so I could use my receiver bike rack. It took me 20 minutes to install-super easy. As I have the Eco I did not install the electric to avoid any warranty issues. Bought a 1979 Ford F-100 half ton pick up to haul stuff!!! LOL!
How was the condition of your hitch out of the box. I keep getting coating damage on my new hitch right out of the box. Curt has already sent me 2 replacement hitches and they all seem to get some kind of damage in the box. At this point lost at what to do. Guess ill just cover damaged coating with touch up.
Well I give up after having 3 hitches in my garage. Im not gonna waste anymore time on getting it blemish free from Curt. I think touching it up myself will remedy my issue. Just dont know what to do with the 2 other hitches. Maybe Ill try to sell them here at half price to someone locally.
Well I give up after having 3 hitches in my garage. Im not gonna waste anymore time on getting it blemish free from Curt. I think touching it up myself will remedy my issue. Just dont know what to do with the 2 other hitches. Maybe Ill try to sell them here at half price to someone locally.