It went on on Monday by a local shop....no time. 1 hour labor and it's up.
It is a Putnam hitch and looks good.

Didn't doit your self: ) ?

I stumbled accross this video somewhere showing the installation of a hitch. A little under 6 mins.

http://www.etrailer.com/tv-hitch-install-2008-ford-taurus-x.aspx

Does anyone have a wiring diagram for the Freestyle? Specifically colours for the tail lights please.

Any chance the Freestyle is pre-wired for a brake controller? I know the limit is 2000 lbs (ie - no trailer brakes needed). However, the trailer I am renting utilizes a 7 wire connector so I thought I'd wire it up appropriatly if I knew there was a control wire. If not, I'll run one when I install the 12V+ charging wire.

Thanks in advance.

Just purchase a Drawtite 2" hitch from http://www.Hitchesforless.com for 125.00 shipped to the house 152.88. Now I need to find a for the cargo and a cargo bag. Anyone know what brands to stay away from?

Just installed the hitch on my wife's car last night. Install went smooth. I ended up not installing the exhaust bracket spacers after a test fit with out them I didn't see a way the muffler or the tips hitting the car. Took my dad and I about 45 min to do the install once the car was up in air. I will get some pictures posted of the final results over the weekend.

How far up in the air did you get it for the install? I ask only because to install mine (Curt w/2" receiver) I backed the FS onto my RhinoRamps and did the install myself with no help (ok - I did use a box to hold up one end of the hitch as I was fishing bolts). The Curt hitch had an integrated exhaust hanger - you removed the old one and just slide the rubber hanger onto the bracket on the hitch itself. Without the hanger attached, the muffler did a nice job of helping to support one end of the hitch during the install. I offered both it and the cardboard box a cool refreshment after the job, but they refused, so I had them both myself.

andy

My dad has a 2 post lift in the garage so I had the car up in the air where the center of the wheels were at eye level I'm 6' tall so about 5 feet off the ground. We used a transmission jack to hold up the muffler just so it wouldn't rip the other hangers under the car I also had to drop the Charcoal canister on the passenger side but it was just hanging by the lines. The kit came with longer bolts for the exhaust bracket and you had to cut off the "J" that was on the back of the hanger bracket. Here is a video I found while I was researching tow hitch prices. http://www.etrailer.com/tv-hitch-install-2008-ford-taurus-x.aspx

We've must have installed the same hitch, had to cut the "J" off the exhaust hanger as well. It's a HiddenHitch that I got from Amazon for about $110 with free shipping.

Anyway, interesting that you didn't install the spacers on the hanger. I don't much care for how low the exhaust hangs now with the spacers, so I think I'll take them out this weekend.

I talked to my local dealer when I started pricing them out and he mentioned that Curt, Hidden Hitch and DrawTite and I think Valley are all under one company. The just kept the brand names rather then combining them.

Here are the Shots I took over the weekend I didn't get around to washing the car.

Hi All,

I also installed the Hidden Hitch on my '05. The installation was not difficult, although I used a floor jack as my "helper". The wiring harness stays in the spare tire well, primarily because I did not want to drill any holes, and don't tow things every day.

I noticed one item which the pics of the cargo carrier reminded me of. we recently took a trip to Colorado, and i put the cargo carrier on the hitch, with the carrier bag to keep things out of the weather. If you look close, you will notice the hitch is at the same level as the exhaust. The cargo bag is nylon, with nylon straps. Yes, we melted part of the cargo bag. Either turn-downs for the exhaust tips, or a heat shield on the cargo carrier will be needed unless you like roasted cargo.

Burt
Texas
'05 Freestyle SEL AWD
'86 Thunderbird Turbo
'85 Jag Sovereign XJ12

I installed a Hidden Hitch Class III hitch on my 2008 Taurus X Limited.
Fortunately it came with a fish wire that goes around the bolt and made
quick work on getting the bolt through the rail and into place.

Obviously the car is not rated for Class III at 2000 lbs towing.
But I wanted to carry 200 lbs of bikes with my Yakima Holdup 4-bike carrier.
With the bikes extending out, there's a lot of torque on the hitch.

The Hidden Hitch held up well, but I heard a clunking sound from
the rear and found the sheet metal underneat tore out on the
right hand side from the high torque of the bikes extending out.
Fortunately, after some asking around, I finally found a welder
that put in new thicker plates to help support the hitch.

The extra metal support also helped close a gap from the
hitch being not quite wide enough. I'd previously just cranked
the gap closed using a lot of heavy force on the bolt, which
probably just added more stress as well, perhaps causing the
crack as much as the bike rack.

Wow - that's gotta have taken some pretty major pressure to get it to tear like that!! How much did you have to torque/force the bolt on the hitch when you installed it? I know on mine it just slid in like butter - was perfectly aligned (and even had a bit of room to play around to adjust the centering of the hitch before tightening the bolts. Is it possible there was damage before you installed the hitch? It almost looks like the damage might have been there before - and perhaps that's why it was hard to install in the first place?

This is a red flag for me to keep an eye on the rear unibody area to make sure it holds up after I tow the trailer to the dump, etc.

andy

Jon's wide set of pictures are stretching the page sideways so much it's very hard to read now, with lots of scrolling.
Jon needs to edit his post to insert carriage returns between his pictures so they're vertical instead of horizontal.
I deliberate add extra carraige returns in my text for now to make everything readable.

The gap was slightly larger than the 1/4" of the sheet metal, because even after the repair with the extra thick metal,
I still had a nice small gap. On the first install, I had to crank down on the bolt with a large ratchet as hard as I could.
There was no damage originally, or after I installed. I even had a hitch dealer inspect my install to make sure before first using it.

I wrote to Hidden Hitch (actually cequentgroup.com) and they said on the phone some gap was needed
to fit the hitch and up to a 1/4" was acceptable. After looking at the pictures via email, they responded:
I printed off the picture and let 2 other guys give their thoughts on what they see.
They are in agreement that the leverage action is at issue. The side cracked as there
was some type of stress riser in the corner (most likely not a smooth radius).

They seem to think the leverage of the bike rack is the issue, not the gap.
A simple 200 lb bike rack off the end of the car puts a lot more force than the 200 lbs
of a trailer at the hitch, due to the lever action.

I tend to agree with them but feel the extra torque from closing the wide gap surely contributed too.
Either way, my weld fix is doing fine, it closed the gap and made the hitch stronger than ever.

I'm a little nervous now, since in addition to my medium-sized trailer that I tow, I also put a Stowaway2 covered cargo container into the hitch (www.stowaway2.com) and it's pretty heavy just empty.

One question on the bikes - 200lbs is quite a bit - did you hinge the rack down for access into the rear hatch at any point? I'm trying to determine whether it's a leverage/angle sort of thing putting the pressure on the hitch mounting points. But in any case it shows that we have to be careful about stress on that rearmost mounting point!

andy