i just got my trailer hitch from handa. i have never seen such a poorly designed part. all honda had to do was have 4 threaded areas under the car like all of the cars ive owned. but no, you need to install this bracket then that bracket ,it weighs a ton and they use a bogus u bolt to loop around the rear towing loop.silly, i mean super silly. but wait there is more.then its time to install the wiring harness . remove rear bumper and every panel in the car,well not every but alot of them.ill need a whole day to figure this out.wish me luck. :x

It's better built than some I've seen and if you take your time and work carefully, the wiring harness will go faster than you think. I did mine in about 2 1/2 hours. I will agree that the Honda engineer that came up with this wiring harness idea should be forced to install all them himself! I bet Honda mechanics hate doing the installation, too! :wink:

Actually.. The hitch only takes about 15 – 20 minutes to bolt on. All the holes are already there. Be glad its not a Chevy or Ford, where you would have to drill very large holes why laying on your back and applying extreme pressure to the drill. And trust me…a class III hitch weights a lot more. :?

Man, do I gotta disagree. Took me about ten minutes (literally) to install a hitch on my brother's Chevy Trail Blazer.

My Element took about 40 minutes. Not horribly difficult, but maybe a little tougher than it needed to be.

the hitch is the easy part its the wiring that looks difficult.

Just installed Trailer hitch (E-Trailer.com) and factory wire harness.. Definately need the instructions! Three hours for both, broke some interior clips, but many other clips left on pieces to re-mount until I can replace them. Clips under bumper were nicer than the break-away style (ha-ha) you can see a place on each side of round clip to pull up with a flat scew driver.. Everything else was practically a phillip or a 15 mil. nut!! If you do it just take your time! Then you can go to the lake!

the step that i didnt do was disconect the battery.it wasnt needed there isnt any power going to the rear .that eliminated the last part of the instructions. it was just a safety measure.i had no problems when everything was hooked up.