****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
I am planning on doing a lot of camping this summer and needed something to haul both my families bikes and our pop up camper. I found this listing on amazon that states the tow bar supports 3500lbs with a 350 lbs tongue weight. Which is perfect my camper fully loaded probably weighs around 3200 and the tongue is weighs around 290. The rack gets here and I assemble everything minus the 2" ball which is not included. In the instructions provided they state you should purchase a ball rated up to 3000lbs, which makes me wonder if the tow bar is rated for 3500 why list in your instructions to get a 3000lb ball. Additionally the instructions that come with the bike rack state you need to torque the nut that secures the ball to 75lbs while the instructions that came with the ball state you need to torque it to 160lbs, not confusing at all right. Regardless I go out and purchase a 3500lb ball, which arrived a few days ago. Unfortunately the room that you have to work with INSIDE the tow bar really limits your options to torque the nut. I called the manufacturer and they didn't have any suggestions on how to tighten it nor did they have a suggestion on a particular model that may fit better. I called a bike store next but they didn't have any tools that would work either, so I ended up calling a nearby auto shop who were awesome! They told me they would take a look at it and somehow they successfully installed it. I will be towing my camper in a couple weeks at which point I will update my review.TLDR; if you are using this as just a bike rack it will work great, if you need to tow something with it installation may be problematic.This rack is really a good value for 4 bikes, and carry’s them well, without scratching them. I bought this for my sister as a gift and she liked it very much. No plastic straps that break. Also has holes to lock up the bikes.
