Has anyone here ever put a tow hitch on a Convertible?

[TipOneill]

I am thinking of putting a tow hitch on my 2016 GT Convertible. Just to be able to pull a light weight trailer with small loads on it. I was wondering if anyone here had put a hitch on their car? Looking for a little advice on a good setup and any "Man don't use these..." kind of help.

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[Ecto1]

I have the Curt hitch on my car. I use it to tow a utility trailer and to install a "Cargo Carrier". It works fine. I bought it from eTrailers.com. Highly recommended e-tailer. The websites all show that the Curt hitch won't fit the ragtop but it's not true. I contacted Curt directly and they assured me that it would fit. Unless it's a Shelby.

Warning: Both hitches use 1 1/4" receivers. This limits your tongue weight to no more than 200 lbs. If you want/need to use a 1 1/4" to 2" receiver adapter this cuts your tongue weight to 100 lbs. My Cargo Carrier needs a 2" receiver. All the Cargo Carriers I found require a 2" receiver. The first Cargo Carrier I bought was all steel and weight 89 lbs. That left me only 10 lbs of cargo. Not good. So I had to buy an overpriced aluminum Cargo Carrier that weighs a little under 40 lbs leaving me 60 lbs for cargo. Better but an expensive lesson in trailer hitches.

It's miserable to install as a one-man operation. This is true for either the Curt or the Draw Tite. You have to feed the bolts & washers through holes in the "platform" (body panels formed a little like frame rails) using these long wires that thread over the bolts. Then you have to slide the hitch members up over the wires & the platform panels. The wires pinch between the hitch & the platform panels and it's a b@#$% to force the hitch into place. Especially while lying on your back under the car. After you manage to get the hitch into place so you can start threading the nuts onto the bolts the wires are pretty mangled and getting the pinched wires out from between the hitch & platform panels & then off the bolt threads is "challenging".

It might be a little easier with two people but there isn't enough room under the car for two. If I had it to do over again I'd have it installed at a shop where they can get the car up in the air and have easier access. They can also get two people under the car if it's up in the air.

Good Luck

 

[Abruptt]

I went with the Draw-Tite Sport Frame from etrailer. Worked great other than it would occasionally scrape on a super rough patch of road (i.e. big drop off coming out of drive way).

I think there's a difference between gross trailer weight and tongue weight, remembering the trailer wheels are holding some of the gross weight.

My 5x8' trailer weighed 620lbs. And I had a few hundred pound wooden king bedroom set on there at one point. Car handled it fine, and no damage (I recently removed the hitch to move to my GT convert.) YMMV

 

[Sundyrse59]

I have the Curt hitch on my car. I use it to tow a utility trailer and to install a "Cargo Carrier". It works fine. I bought it from eTrailers.com. Highly recommended e-tailer. The websites all show that the Curt hitch won't fit the ragtop but it's not true. I contacted Curt directly and they assured me that it would fit. Unless it's a Shelby.

Warning: Both hitches use 1 1/4" receivers. This limits your tongue weight to no more than 200 lbs. If you want/need to use a 1 1/4" to 2" receiver adapter this cuts your tongue weight to 100 lbs. My Cargo Carrier needs a 2" receiver. All the Cargo Carriers I found require a 2" receiver. The first Cargo Carrier I bought was all steel and weight 89 lbs. That left me only 10 lbs of cargo. Not good. So I had to buy an overpriced aluminum Cargo Carrier that weighs a little under 40 lbs leaving me 60 lbs for cargo. Better but an expensive lesson in trailer hitches.

It's miserable to install as a one-man operation. This is true for either the Curt or the Draw Tite. You have to feed the bolts & washers through holes in the "platform" (body panels formed a little like frame rails) using these long wires that thread over the bolts. Then you have to slide the hitch members up over the wires & the platform panels. The wires pinch between the hitch & the platform panels and it's a b@#$% to force the hitch into place. Especially while lying on your back under the car. After you manage to get the hitch into place so you can start threading the nuts onto the bolts the wires are pretty mangled and getting the pinched wires out from between the hitch & platform panels & then off the bolt threads is "challenging".

It might be a little easier with two people but there isn't enough room under the car for two. If I had it to do over again I'd have it installed at a shop where they can get the car up in the air and have easier access. They can also get two people under the car if it's up in the air.

Good Luck

Tounge weight and trailer weight are two different things. You can get a "kit trailer" from harbor freight where you will be able to safely TOW it behind you. The toung weight may be 100 pounds, but the TOWING CAPACITY is 1,000 pounds. The HF trailer has a towing cap of 1049 lbs. is 40½" X 48", it is $400 and street legal. If a cargo carrier mounted on your hitch doesn't work for you, maybe a small trailer will.

 

[Balr14]

Two things:
My experience is that the installation is best done by professionals, especially on modern cars that may not have full frames.

It changes the way air currents flow over the car with the top down. I'm not sure how or if it's speed dependent, it just feels different.

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