Problem with Coastal Tech Hitch Installation

make sure all the bolts and nuts are loose then slowly and evenly tighten everything up. Most times the misalignment your seeing here is the fact that things are slightly out of alignment and will pull into place if you have all the brackets and such slightly loose when starting to assamble it.

 

One week ago I ran into exactly same problem.

First I installed the driver side bracket pushed toward the
driver side as much as possible (as the instructions say),
but the gap was just too much.
After that I pushed it in the opposite direction, but there
was still some gap (maybe 5-6 mm).
Except for the driver side bracket everything else was
loose and there was no way I could close the gap
by evenly tighting the remining bolts and nuts.

At the end I had to put four washers (you should have some
extra when you received your hitch) between
the bracket and the main body of the hitch (two for each
bolt). In my case this was sufficient to close the gap
and tighten the nits. However, after tightening the nits
the end of the bolt was almost where the end of the nit was
(maybe only 1 extra mm) which makes me feel a bit nervous.

After the installation I haven't used the hitch, but I think I
will try to find longer bolts and use them instead so I can
sleep better at night.

I don't know where the gap comes from (it could be the hitch,
but I wouldn't be surprised if it is the body of the car itself),
but if I were to design the hitch I would try to do something
about such potential gaps. E.g., some of the holes that attach
the hitch to the body would be slightly longish (ellipse-like)
instead of circle so you can adjust better if there are any
gaps.

PR

 

Hmm,

The orientation of the hanger looks right, I had originally thought that you may have spun it 180 degrees.

As a check, here's the dimensions of my hitch which popped right into place with no gap:

From outside hanger to outside hanger: 38-3/4"
Length of the pre-fab cross member, excluding the separate hanger (from outside hanger on the passenger side to your right-hand red arrow): 38-5/16"

good luck,
-bob

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(gordonr\";p=\"108109)</div>

I am not very excited about using washers to fill-in the gap, but
this was the best I could do given the circumstances.
I would be glad to use some better solution if other folks have
suggestions.

I bought the car in the end of October 2004 so I doubt the reason
for the mismatch is some recent changes in the car's dimensions.

No, I didn't try to contact Coastal Tech (been too much busy with
work recently), but maybe I should.

PR

 

having a second look at it I'd elongate the holes, pull off the air dam put the hitch on tighten the bolts then undo the RH side take it off and put the air dam back on and then put the right hand side back on and torque it up. On most vehicles there are some tolerences for mounting bolts and such but this looks like a half inch gap and I wouldn't use washers as they are not very good in sheer loads. Better would be a piece of 1/2" flat bar drilled for the bolt holes and then tightened in there. Best would be for Coastal to make it right. Before you phone them I'd measure the center to center on the bolts that hold the brackets on. Then when you contact them they'll know if something is a-miss with the car or the hitch.

 

buy a good round file and start at it, with a good file you'll take 1/4" off each end in about 4-5 minutes. That should get you some room to move it in closer and if your down to 1/8-3/16" I'd just bolt it together and torque the bolts to spec. The left hand side will be the one to watch as your moving the side plate of the bracket closer to the air dam. Just leave yourself some room so it doesn't rub.

 

So, as I read this, it sounds like the car hasn't changed and your hangers and my hangers are essentially the same distance apart.

Does this mean that the larger, cross member piece that comprises the bulk of the hitch is different? What is the length of yours compared to mine?

If it's different, I'd suggest sending it back to Coastal rather than trying to jury rig something...

-bob

 

Last weekend I installed a Coastal 2in receiver on my 2 month old 2005 without a hitch (ok that's a poor choice of words). Let me know if you would like me to measure anything to compare with yours.

 

No Problem with Coastal Tech Hitch Installation

The 2" Coastal hitch bolted right up today. Nice fit on my 2007. I will test for flex after reading the other thread.

 

IMHO, this sort of situation (slightly misfit) happens to many hitch installations. It happened to me when I installed Hidden Hitch on my Mazda CX-9. When it happens, you need to be creative, not following instructions to the words.

 

This post is a bit old, but I just went through the exact problem and thought I'd share my experience.

When I installed the hitch on my 2008, I had the same gap problem on the driver's site, though in my case it was large enough such that the factory-supplied bolts to attach the cross bar to the bracket were to short to allow for secure bolting. I called Coastal Tech and, to my surprise and after being put on hold 3 or 4 times, I was told that it was designed this way and that a 3/8" gap was normal. I didn't want to deal with having to explain that the factory bolts were too short.

End result, I bought some 1.5" bolts at Home Depot along with some nylon spacers and it seems to have worked just fine. I sure as heck won't trust Coastal Tech with much of anything more, and if this is the "way it was designed", it's a pretty piss-poor design.

 

FWIW, I just installed the CT hitch on my 2008, and it lined up pretty well. I did pull the driver's side bracket as far toward the center of the car as I could, and that made it a pretty simple install. 15 or 20 minutes max.

I have also read that people have complained the hitch is too flimsy, but I did the standing-on-and-jumping-up-and-down test, and my 165 lbs. didn't cause any sag at all.

Just sayin'. Seems to be a nice product, and the instructions were clear & easy to follow. But I wonder... does such a hitch add any performance characteristics to the car? I mean, it seems to be a pretty sturdy crossmember, and certainly add "tension" between the bolt-on points. When I was down there I was looking to see where I'd put the BT stiffening plate, and got thinking about the lateral rigidity of the car. But then again, the hitch attaches to the frame probably too far back to matter.