I've seen several advertisements for bike racks and hitches for Prius, but when I inquired with our sales rep he said via e-mail: Toyota does not recommend a tow hitch of any kind for the Prius, which can be found on page 326 of your owners manual. If proceeded to do it anyway which probably would do any damage, but if something did happen it could void your warranty. Am I doing something too crazy by purchasing bike rack? I want to also add hitch to attach to bike rack. Should I get 1 1/4 inch or 2 inch hitch? I have 2013 Prius 4. I have to be able to travel with bikes and I'm not strong enough and too short to use roof mounted racks.. We need help with any sites or products that have worked for your family. Thanks!
I just picked up a 4 this past weekend and I'm curious about this too. Only difference is I want to use the hitch to support one of those cargo tray things. I looked into getting a roof mounted rack and cargo box but it was super expensive and I imagine it would have a huge impact on my fuel economy. I saw a bunch of people with class 1 hitches that they got off Amazon for around 100 and then lightweight cargo trays that cost around 50-70. I would imagine that if something did happen which caused damage Toyota would void the warranty since the manual DOES specifically say do not attach a hitch to the thing. I'm also torn because I want to lower it and I'm not sure how the hitch would affect that.
I have a hitch on my 2009 and it has not been an issue. The original post does pose an interesting distinction - whether Toyota discourages towing or installing a tow hitch at all. I had been lead to believe that it was towing that they did not want and that using a hitch for a bike rack was just fine. Back when I was looking at racks there were a couple of 2" hitches available - they were quite a bit more expensive than a 1.25" so I just got the smaller one. It seems though that at least one of the companies (Coastal) no longer sells their hitch so it may not be possible to find one. Good luck.
