Used them in the past with no problem.

 

I had a hitch installed on my Ford windstar mini van. They had some kid back the van into the bay onto a ramp with the rear up in the air. He didnt apply the parking brake and it rolled off and out into the parking lot. Thankfully it didnt hit anything or anyone. Thats how it started. 4 hours later, told me they had trouble with the wiring but "figured it out". I leave, shortly afterwards Im driving on the highway all of the dummy lights on the dash suddenly illuminate, the radio made a horrible high pitched whistling sound, and the entire dash cut out. No power at all. No gauges, lights, no blinkers nothing. Surprisingly it stayed running. Apparently they managed to short out the entire interior electrical system. Being a work van it wasnt worth fixing and we settled it out of court. Word of advice. Do some research on your local uhaul branch before using them. It can save you alot of trouble. Good luck!

 

I used them about 20 years ago for a hitch on a VW Golf and then a few months back for a 1999 Outback. Both came out fine.

 

Check out the difficulty level and instructions at Trailer Hitch | etrailer.com

Some of them are REALLY easy..... My son did his first(Land Rover LR3) when he was 14...

Great prices @Amazon too.... http://amzn.to/1oIrNpb

 

This is great advice.

After installing one on my Titan, in a matter of minutes I thought they would all be like that.

However, my wife wanted a rack on the back of her VW Jetta....was kind of a pain in the ass, even watching the installation video and studying the instructions. Took me 2x the time that they claimed it should.

We sold that car and bought a VW Golf Wagon....even worse than the Jetta. Required quite a bit of removing body parts and panels, plus modifications. When this car was totaled in an accident a few months later....I refused to install a hitch on the Passat she got.

Moral of the story is do your homework.

 

Did mine by myself, was pretty easy except instructions were not explicit on one point, making me redo part of the install.
2 sets of hands would be best (I struggled to get the hitch in place before securing a bolt) - but it is not a technically challenging install.
Look up videos of the installation on etrailer.com
It is basically 4 bolts into existing holes...about a 1 out of 10 on the difficulty scale.

 

Yep, last time I put one on, it was very easy. It was a 1/2 ton SUV, so it was all pre-drilled and stuff. There are websites that will tell you if your vehicle is an easy install or not. But I have generally heard good stuff about Uhaul as well.

 

The big difference in DIY is a savings of $300-$400

 

I've experienced them scratching the crap out of my paint on a brand new SUV, and claiming they would have to splice my wiring harness for the trailer wires when I knew damn well there was a plug in adapter specific to my vehicle that they sold, but didn't have in stock. My vote is no. Poor workmanship.

 

I've been in automotive for a long time, and have seen tons of bad work. It almost always comes from quick oil change places, uhauls, or budget independent shops.

Kids making 8 bucks an hour tend to do bad work. If you can't put the hitch on yourself, you won't know if they did a good job until it's way too late. The way uhaul splices wires causes tons of problems a few years down the road. By the time it causes issues, your labor warranty is gone... Then you're paying me a grand to fix it!

 

I had U-Haul put one on a car twenty years ago that went well. The last two hitches I put on myself - a Hidden Hitch on my wife's Toyota Highlander, and a stock Ford hitch on my F-150 Lightning. If you're good at following directions and have a socket set and a friend that will help give you a third hand, you can save some money and be assured that the hitch was put on right. :thumbsup:

 

I would stay away from U-haul. I'm sure some branches are great, but customer service just isn't consistent enough to trust any of them.

Recommend DIY, or a mechanic you trust.

 

Overall, I would not suggest Uhaul.
The main place in PHX seems legit. If there is not a hitch available for your vehicle, they will build one for you free of charge. Obviously, their niche is that they end up making money on it.
Only reason I would consider going, is that they do not make a hitch for my Jeep Comanche, and it would be done for free. But, in my experience Most of Arizona fails at life in general so no thanks!

 

If your car is easy then go with E-trailer, otherwise I've not had a complaint on the two cars I've had Uhaul install hitches on. More expensive than doing it yourself, but what would you expect?

 

I'd do it myself. I don't trust anybody else with my vehicles. Especially some drop out working at a U-Haul store. But I've been both an auto mechanic and millwright in past careers so things like this come easy to me.

 

I know a lot of people say not to get your hitch from Uhaul but I’ve had several done by them and the biggest reason is the warranty. I bought a hitch several years ago for a Honda Fit, while working in West Virginia and had it for several years and it began to rust. Took it to my local Uhaul, they checked their computer and replaced it at no charge to me. That might be something to think about.

 

I've installed 3 or 4. For the most part, the hitch usually only required 4 or 6 bolts. Very simple if you have someone to help hold it up. An impact wrench also makes things very quick.

The electrical part is typically what requires more work. Your car may be mostly prewired for a trailer, which will make things easy if you buy a factory kit. If you don't have that, then one of the kits that lets you just plug in to your taillights works well in most cases and doesn't require much if any splicing. You need to know in advance though if your trailer needs a 7 pin or 4 pin plug and what will be required for that to work with your vehicle. Once you adding things like brake controllers, aux power, etc... it gets more complicated.

 

Let me edit my suggestion by stating that I’ve had Uhaul install my trailer hitches on cars that wouldn’t normally have a hitch. So we never needed anything wired. One Honda Civic, two Honda Fits and my wife’s Honda CRV. We only installed them because we wanted to use trailer-based bike/cargo carriers. We never intended to tow anything. All of mine were installed in about 30-45 minutes. I’m certain there are better places that have more knowledge but Uhaul always had my mount in stock and it’s literally bolt-on so if you want to do it yourself I’m sure you can.

 

After installing my hitch on my Forester, I'd suggest doing it yourself. It was four bolts and the only part that was a pain was needing to drop my muffler. That was really only tough because I was doing it myself and had to set up jackstands to hold the muffler. If I had a second pair of hands it'd be that much easier. As far as wiring, I lucked out as the Forester comes set up for towing and I just needed to get the plug and play adapter (which I bought years after installing the hitch because I bought the hitch initially for the bike rack).

 

I was recently in the same boat, needed a hitch installed on a Volvo XC60, I was reluctant to use uhaul, but I ended up going there and kind of keeping my fingers crossed, and after everything was said and done I came away super impressed, the guy that did the work seemed really knowledgeable, and did the work very carefully.
I don't know if this is the case at all locations but where I went the guy's full time job was just installing hitch's and he seemed to take pride in his work, so I would totally recommend them.

 

Did they have to cut away any part of the bumper or make any changes to the body? I want to get a hitch on our 2016 XC60. Volvo charges $$$ and cuts a hole in the bumper, just want to make sure whatever is done looks nice. If you have a pic, that would be awesome

 

the hitch would not be that tough. wiring the connector so you can run lights on the trailers are a different story.

 

On my 2004 X3 I used this bolt on hitch and this kit, Curt 56146 SMD Trailer Wire Converter. Very good directions.

Total cost was about $150, approx $900 lower than the dealer quote.

Wiring was super easy as the battery is in the trunk.

 

I installed a hitch on my 2002 BMW 530. I had to drill the floor where the spare tires goes and remove the rear bumper cover. No big deal if you know how to work on cars. I never bothered with wiring because the I did not want to tow, Just mount the bike rack.

I did the same to a brand new volvo XC70. This was easier since I did not need to drill. Just remove the rear bumper cover and bumper and bolted it on. I did have to do some minor plastic trimming. Again I did not do the wiring since I don't have any plans now to tow.

I order both trailer hitches on line for about $150 each. Both were made by Curt.

 

Nope, nothing was cut, yeah I know all about the Volvo fee, I think the dealer quoted me $1k, I practically laughed in his face.
One note I did not have them install any of the wiring since I have no plans to ever haul a trailer, I don't know if that would affect the need to cut.
I will try and take a pic and post it later.

 

Here is a photo, I hope this helps

 

There's a local place by me that does hitches. I'll be getting a hitch on my Fit this spring, and will most likely use them. If they do custom hitches, I'm going to see if I can get a 2" receiver so I can use the Kuat rack I have already.

My wife's Crosstrek has a 2" Ecohitch that uses the bumper cutout on the car. Oddly enough, the Subaru receiver doesn't use that cutout, and cost a LOT more than even the fairly expensive Ecohitch. We paid one of the Subaru mechanics to install it for us on his own time, which I'm glad for, because installing that hitch required removing several bumper parts as well as dropping the exhaust. It's a SUPER tight fit in there. I don't even have jack stands to lift a vehicle to make that kind of work easier. And, my garage is not a pleasant place to do that kind of work, either.

I don't trust Uhaul with ANYTHING. I agree that their trucks are horribly maintained. The only thing I've done is rent trailers from them...because for trailers there's often no other option. But I have had great experience with Penske trucks. A friend of mine used a Uhaul truck for an in-state move (Michigan), and their truck dropped a major drivetrain part on the road in the middle of the night. Uhaul was ZERO help for them. They got another truck from a competitor, moved their crap between the two (in the dark), and left the Uhaul truck there until the next day, when Uhaul would actually be available to do anything about it.

 

perfect! thanks. i'm gonna schedule my install now and order new rack

 

My Uhaul hitch receiver has been solid for going on 5 years. They did a great job on the install, and cost was about same as getting one and doing it myself. Would go with them again. I did peel off the ugly stickers though. Looks much better now.

 

Uhaul did a great job on mine as well. I picked the place with the best reviews within 30 miles of me though.

One thing I heard is that if you take off the sticker with the warnings, the one on the right, it will void any warranty you have. I did take the uhaul one off though.