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Tow Vehicle wire connector mount

Steve & Ellen

Steve & Ellen

Novice
Right now we use a 2002 Subaru Forester as the tow vehicle. I have yet to find a good location for the car side trailer wire mounting plug. Right now we run the wiring out the rear and just close the hatch on it. Anyone with experience on this vehicle?

Thanks
 
Steve'nEllen said:
Right now we run the wiring out the rear and just close the hatch on it. Anyone with experience on this vehicle?
Click to expand...

That's what we've done with all of our tow vehicles when pulling any trailers. When not using it, just keep it inside the trunk or back of the vehicle.

:cool:
 
I'm sure every vehicle is different, but here's how it worked for me. I added a wiring kit to support towing since our van didn't come wired with a towing package. After making the connections, I laid the tow wiring kit in a recessed area under the carpet in the back of the van.

There are several rubber grommets covering holes under the carpet/floorboard in the back of our van, so I popped out one of the grommets and ran the trailer connector wire through to the underside of the tow vehicle. I leave it wire-tied to the hitch. I'm not sure how common these kind of pass-through's are, but you might want to check under your flooring in the back of your tow vehicle to see if you have anything similar that you could use.

Thanks,
Steve
 
We worried a lot about this issue when we bought our 550 recently and had to have a hitch and wiring added to our Honda Accord. Everyone said, just close the trunk lid on the cable and it will be fine. It did work fine for our first couple of trips but we were still nervous about it. We finally ordered a short 7-pin extension cable from etrailer.com and stripped the outer sheath from a few inches of the extension. We flattened out the individual wires and that's the part that the trunk lid closes on. Our thinking is that if the repeated closing of the trunk lid does eventually damage the cable we will be fixing or replacing the extension rather than messing with the cable in the trunk that disappears mysteriously into the bowels of the car.
 
We tow with a 2006 Subaru Tribeca. When we got it, it was already equipped with a Class I hitch, 4 pin connector and had the tranny cooler and larger radiator for towing. It did not come with the electric brake controller or a 7 pin connector for the electric brakes. A local shop installed the controller, found a path and mounted the wire harness and added the female 7 pin connector right next to the 1-1/4" hitch. It took him about 3 hours to do the work. I work with the installers brother so I know I wasn't getting jacked around on the labor time. It cost around $400 for parts and labor for the complete install.

Messing with electrical on a car under warranty made me really nervous.

I'll take some pictures of it this evening (if I remember).
 
Thanks, I would like to see how they mounted the 7pin plug. I have just not found "the spot". I am not sure how much longer we will do our long distance towing with the 02 Forester, but I would like a cleaner setup.
 
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