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I think JoeinGa didn't use his knee for that visual! But the point is made.
While you are correct (I found that pic on the 'Net) ... I have had BOTH knees replaced. I just liked that big honkin' bruise in the picture I picked to use for this. Here's MY actual knees
+1 on stuck pins! My 99 Dually had the WDH head in the receiver with a locking pin. Even though it was garaged, it still rusted up bad enough I could not get it out. When I traded it in they cut the pin, put it on a lift and beat it out from behind. Never left a hitch in after that. I also would not want to get rear ended with the hitch in place, it can do a lot of damage to the frame that normally would not happen. Depending on the angle of impact, it could be pushed down which will twist the receiver and since the receiver is bolted directly to the rear of the frame, it too will get damaged. Without the hitch in, the same impact would damage the bumper with a good chance of no further damage.
Just a thought regarding hitch covers... If you are considering adding a bit of “road armor” to your truck, I have first hand experience with a shock absorbing receiver hitch step that really worked in providing both occupant and vehicle protection during a rear end collision. That is my hitch cover... lol. I had one two on my Raptor and am ordering one for the new truck.
I was sitting at a stop light and was rear ended at a significant speed (est. 25+ mph at impact) by a “distracted“ young driver. No injuries thankfully. The SuperBumper did its job. No bed, tailgate or frame damage. Minor scratches to the rear bumper. The plastic top of my rear bumper suffered the worst and was replaced. The striking vehicle embedded their front grill area into the SuperBumper. When they subsequently backed up to separate the vehicles, the entire front end plastics (grill & bumper) was pulled off and remained attached to the SuperBumper.
The SuperBumper was destroyed. The company touted a free replacement bumper for damage verified (by traffic accident report) as a cause of being rear ended. Installing the replacement was the icing on the cake!
Check ‘em out!
Last edited by fillmoreranger; Sep 18, 2020 at 12:32 PM.
Not to keep the hissing match going, but in response to kozal01, I measured my present aluminum tow bar, and it measured 7 3/4" out from the bumper. My WDH that I have is 13". As I said, 'up to 18", and if you live in a very redneck part of the country, might be too close to true. (no disrespect to rednecks) Some custom built hitches are rather ugly and large. Just sayin'.
The whole point of this rant was to point out that leaving the hitch (tow bar) in the truck at all times can cause injury to anyone who happens to walk by close to the rear of your truck. I see hitches on passenger cars with so much rust that I will wager they haven't been used in years.
Thanks to the other Members that at least partially agreed with me. Also thanks to JoeinGa for sharing!
Yeah, i gotta say, it's more than possible to have the hitch be smacked into, be it by car or pedestrian, not everyone is on top of their game - my toddler ran head first into my lowered gate today, turns out the sides of that are crimped metal and make quite the mark on the forehead
Anyway, yeah, i really want a little cover for mine, i like the idea of the bumper armour, having just a hitch in there helps to some degree, but, i don't have enough traffic to warrant the $200 price tag for that kind of thing
Liking these options for the time being, they're what i would call, fairly reasonably priced (for what they are) and seem to look ok in the pictures.
An old picture, 2x4 steel tubing welded onto square tubing and drilled for a pin. Works great for a step or offers a little protection to the bumper while in a parking lot.
if you let it stick out to far it will set off the parking sensors.
Plus, in theory anyway, if you get hit hard enough from behind by another vehicle, I bet the hitch could act as a lever on the frame and bend it instead of the bumper and box.
Here's the receiver Vs non-receiver supports. The crossbar on the receiver support is at the same height as the 'bumper' in the non-receiver support.
The section circled in red below shows why the frame bends easily. The uppermost bolt attaching the support is close to the middle of the frame, the lower bolt is well below the frame. This places the impact beam of all three supports way below the frame. It's designed to bend at less than catastrophic force.
The distance between a WDH and the rear cross beam is not enough to make a difference. If the force of impact on a WDH is enough to bend the frame, the impact at the crossbar won't be reduced enough to not bend the frame.
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