Gadgetory

so we have the model three hooked up to this 1700 pound trailer that is not my model 3 so I'm totally fine doing whatever so tehsils are some of the coolest cars on the planet but allowing a car to accomplish more things is always a good thing today we're going to install a hitch on the Tesla Model 3 that allow it to tow carry bikes and just be an all-around more productive vehicle let's get started so this isn't my model 3 obviously it took me 2 second to find someone brave enough to let me tear down their vehicle whoa hey wait a minute stare down this has been from Tesla Nomex he has a whole channel dedicated to the economics of Tesla vehicles why do you want to hitch on your car well I think that these cars are beautiful but they're not as functional as they could be so adding this hitch is going to give me a whole new capability of you know carrying bikes around and little things like that and while the tells us aren't rated to tow anything yet we did see a performance model that was pulling something recently so I thought this is just a great way to basically get that same functionality without having to buy a $80,000 car that's true and the thing that I like about this hitch is that it does nothing to change the aesthetics of the vehicle you can't see it's there when it's installed it's totally hidden 100% let's go around to the back of the car and we'll show you how to install it all right so we have to get this hunk of metal behind the bumper inside of this Tesla so we're gonna tear off the whole back end to get it installed but it's not as hard as it sounds this is called the Eco hitch I'll have it linked down the video description this video is not sponsored but this thing has a towing capacity of 2,000 pounds and a tongue weight of 200 pounds now obviously like we mentioned before the Tesla is not actually rated to tow stuff but at the same time Tesla's are super powerful vehicles with electric motors and you know large batteries inside so it's not like it's gonna hurt the car to throw a couple bikes on the back or to tow a trailer every now and then it's probably not the best idea to put like a mobile-home behind this thing but you know 2,000 pounds is 2,000 pounds we'll test it out here at the end you nervous yet alright for this little plastic piece over top of the light this little guy is kind of hard to unscrew we don't want to scratch it up because this the Tesla is kind of nice so we're gonna take these pliers put a cloth over it and then grab it and then twist it like that because the pliers are stronger than your hands are and then once it started I've come off the rest of the way keep going alright so there's two little black plastic pins on the inside that you just pop off this top and then the whole thing collapses inside allowing you to pull the whole contraption out from underneath allowing this felt piece to pull away giving us access to the taillights and then to pull the taillight out there's two bolts holding it in and both of these are eight millimeters all right after those two nuts are released from the bolts the whole thing comes away there's two little pins one here and one here and with the way that they're shaped they go inside these little plugs so there's a little bit of force pops the whole light out of the housing so the other the passenger side tail lights the same way it has those two little nuts inside and then hopefully yep same two little clefts right here so now the taillights are out and that we can work on the bumper so you've got these two push pins that hold this side of the bumper into the wheel well and then just one Torx screw that holds it all together okay so you're underneath the model three right now and there are these are all 10 millimeter bolts there's three over here on this end or removing this bottom plastic plate and then there's two more clips right here on the very end right next to the bumper and these can be pulled down with just a screwdriver popping out this plastic piece and you have full access to the bolts right there so let's pull off this plastic chunk remember throughout this whole process it's probably a good idea to keep your shoes organized as with any project there's two more bolts up here at the top of the bumper underneath where those headlights used to be and by headlights I mean taillights so the bumper itself is all made of plastic and it's got these little clasps right here so I'm gonna unclip all of these oh this is in my car and all of the rear sensors on the bumper are attached to this little guy take this thing off roading what do you mean we're even going I've just been jumping it you know and this is what a Tesla looks like without the whole bumper or tail lights how you feeling about having your car not in one piece anymore VIN I feel alright I'm a little worried about the IKEA nature of the assembly but I know where to go if we lose any of these parts those plastic pushpins are impressive rolls while you're there it's cool okay so all the plastic bumper stuff is off there's this metal piece right here called the crash bar and there's three bolts on either side three where binner at and then three right here inside of these little holes and you to them are 15 millimeters and then the whole crash bar pulls up and away from the frame so this is the hitch right here you see how it has this sloping plate the car also has a sloping plate so this piece of metal right here we actually take off and discard we don't need it but to access this metal we have to remove this and these are all 10 millimeter bolts and there's five of them one here two three four and five you just got to pull this clip off so these are the same 15 millimeter bolts all the way around this and once they're all off we don't need this piece of metal anymore because the slope is included on the actual hitch itself all right so remember that piece we just pulled off and discarded there's these little plastic washers that are included with the kit and we're gonna put on each one of these little bolts and that's to keep the two metals separate from each other and it could be for vibrations to minimize them or it also could be because dissimilar metals fusing together is a thing and we don't want that to happen so the white washers go on these bolts as well as the three bolts right here on the mount itself and that's where the crash bar installs once the hitch is on the model three so now the hitch is installed on the back of the model three this part right here is removable and I'll show you that in a second and all of these nuts are tightened down to fifty pound feet of torque so the thing with torquing down all of these bolts the 50 foot-pounds of torque is with the torque wrench once you hit the right amount of torque it'll do this clicking thing right there and that's when you know when to stop and the nut is tight enough on the bolt and then the crash bar attaches right onto the hitch itself with the white washers between it and the hitch to prevent that corrosion so the crash bar is also installed now and each of the nuts holding it in place are also torqued down to that same 50 foot-pounds of torque that the base hitch was torqued down to this part right here is the hitch and the whole hitch is hidden except for this part right here which sticks up inside of the bumper and attaches to the hitch itself that we just mounted but in order for that to happen we do have to cut the only cut that we're gonna make a hole in the bottom of that plastic piece underneath the bumper itself that way with the hole there this can slip inside of the hole and then this will protrude out but only when we actually want to tow something and when we're not actually towing something we can take it out and it's hidden and the Tesla 3e looks like it has no hitch so probably the scariest part of this ordeal is cutting into the bumper itself but it's actually a lot simpler than it seems we have the bumper off of the car set right here and to get the correct measurements we're measuring from the inside of the car to the outside where the bumper is at and right here measuring along this center line we're looking at 26 and a half inches which is this line right here and then in the instructions it says that if we put a dot right here which is 3/4 of an inch from this one center line we can use a 4-inch hole saw and cut right there and then put another dot over here two and a quarter inches from that center line and use that same four inch hole saw right here we don't have a four inch hole saw so we use this paint candle set it right here got the diameters correct and then we can use a jig saw to cut that hole out and it accomplishes the same thing and there we have it perfectly cut before the hitch all right so the bumper is in place it's clipped in in both wheel wells we have the little plastic tacks and both Torx screws going up into the top connecting the bumper in the wheel wells and bin just finished installing all the bolts underneath that plastic skid plate so we should be good to go after we installed the brake lights we'll go test out the trailer all right so we got the passenger side tail light installed member has that plastic bit up top then we got the driver's side tail light for the model three now it's in and we'll plug it in and get those two nuts screwed in on the backside and this is what it looks like with the hitch installed let's get that trailer on it all right so we have the model three hooked up to this 1700 pound trailer which is pretty close to maxing out the towing capacity of the hitch we just installed but we're going to give it a try anyway like that is not my model 3 so I'm totally fine doing whatever so I think the trailer did good I was on the trailer how did it feel from the inside it felt good it didn't have any kind of hesitation about pulling it it felt strong I was more worried about the trailer kind of bouncing around and stuff but it felt solid obviously we weren't going superfast is just in a parking lot testing it out because we don't have like the lights and stuff on the back of it depends on what state you're in you might need a wiring harness and brake lights and all that stuff but for a bike rack and stuff I think it'd be great yeah for anything any of your a reasonable amount of needs that you would have for a vehicle like this it performs well so thumbs up you might not use that hitch all the time but sometimes it's useful to have on there and when you don't need it it's totally hidden you have any questions or comments leave them down in the comment section check out Ben's channel I will leave a link right here and thanks stuff for watching I'll see you around