Before I bought her in January 2021, my 2006 HSE began its life in Illinois and Iowa, lived in Idaho for a while, and then spent most of its time in Juneau, Alaska before moving down to the desert in Southern California in 2017. Soon after my purchase I decided it needed a bolt-on hitch receiver and a trailer wiring harness just in case. When I pulled off the rear tow eye cover to do the installs, I noticed the exposed area was rusty, but I frankly never gave it another thought. The receiver was mostly used for a bike rack, except for the rare instances where I'd get a very small trailer to move a couple pieces of furniture around. Everything seemed peachy.

This year I decided to rent a small RV trailer to go camping (I'm a tent guy, but I had a shoulder replacement and wanted less work in setting up camp this one time). The Transcend One 151BH I rented had a dry weight of 3,550 pounds, a gross vehicle weight rating of 4,420 pounds, and a hitch weight of 490 pounds. These were well within an HSE's theoretical max towing capacity of 7,716 pounds, though the bolt-on hitch receiver I had installed had a 5,000 pound tow weight and a 500 pound tongue weight (the OEM clip-on receiver has a little better tongue weight of 550 pounds). We didn't put much into the trailer before taking off, but what we did was mostly behind the wheels due to the narrow gap between the receiver's and trailer's tongue weight rating. We checked using a friend's tongue scale and while I don't remember exactly what the reading was, it was much, much less than 490 pounds.

The LR3 worked just fine getting the trailer from an elevation of 400 feet to 9,000 feet and back so I was quite happy. I checked everything often during the trip, but when I pulled into the gas station for a final fill-up just before arriving home, I saw to my horror that the tabs on the LR3's rear crossmember had been pulled rearward and down. These tabs are where the corresponding tabs on the hitch receiver meet and are bolted together. The hitch receiver looked fine, the bolts were fine, the nuts on the bolts were fine, but the receiver was now pointing down at about 30 degrees from where it should be. The sole problem was the fact that the metal in the crossmember had weakened to the point where something like a tab (even a thick metal one) couldn't possibly take any serious stress. I had a buddy with a big pick-up truck come and haul the trailer home for me. Clearly the LR3's pre-California life in states that use salt to deal with winter took its toll.

If I never want to tow anything again there is no problem, but I liked having that capability. The obvious solution is a rear crossmember replacement, but while the cost of new crossmember is surprisingly reasonable ($565 from our friends at Atlantic British: https://www.roverparts.com/body-chas...me/KVB500101G/ ), I can't imagine the cost of having someone drop the fuel tank and do the necessary welding. This would not be a job for a Sunday afternoon on the driveway. But I'm wondering if the more cost-effective solution would be to get one of those Curt "wrap around" hitch mounts from Atlantic British ($320, https://www.roverparts.com/exterior-...ories/LH13456/ ). From what I can see, it doesn't use those relatively little tabs but instead is bolted at four points, ***possibly*** through the frame rather than the crossmember itself. Not sure about exactly where it's bolted, but even if the crossmember is involved not all of the weight is being held by a couple of tabs.

Any experience with this type of receiver? And though AB has all sorts of warnings that using it makes the full-sized spare (which I have with the HSE) unaccessible, the reviews on the AB site say something different. Could this be a workaround, or is the only solution a complete crossmember replacement if I want to pull a camping trailer again?

Thanks for any advice!

Nick in Palm Springs

 

My son has the Curt on his 2007. Yes it bolts into the frame. We both like it and when we need to "just meet" the load limit of our flatbed trailer, we use his since it has the Curt receiver. If you do not take your rover into places that require a winch to get out of and don't need every bit of clearance you can get, you will be fine. My 2006 on the other hand gets stuck more than it should even after changing to a tactical 4x4 rear bumper to gain a little bit more takeoff angle. I do tow with the factory hitch, but try to avoid getting close to the max weight limit when I can.

BUT; I could be wrong
Jeff

 

Great intel...thanks!

Does your son have the full sized spare that drops down from the chassis? If so, have there been any interference issues?

Nick in Palm Springs

 

Regarding the Curt Hitch it does bolt on to the left and right frame rails of the vehicle.... You can see the exact mounting points as well as complete weight ratings in this instructions PDF for the tow hitch:

https://www.roverparts.com/Instructi...iler-Hitch.PDF

 

This looks perfect. Still would like to get some datapoints from folks who have installed this baby on an HSE with the full sized spare.


Nick Pace

 

Yes & No..... Yes he did have a full size spare. & No because we added a swing out spare tire carrier.
That said, we both run 256/60R18 so use that as you wish.

Jeff

 

Hmmm... I have 255/55R19s because I'm mostly a paved\dirt\occasional snow road guy. Dude on a website reviewing this Curt mount is adamant that a full sized spare tire can indeed fit underneath but only if you "remove the circular rubber spacers at the top of the spare tire chamber towards the rear. They are supposed to unscrew, but if yours are like mine, the screw is corroded, so I just pried them off with a screwdriver and left the metal screw part intact since the tire will clear it." The photo he took (very thoughtful!) shows a partial tire size of "255/60" but no info on rim diameter. If I understand tire measurements, it means that his tire's width is the same as mine (255mm) and his tire's sidewall is wider than than mine (153mm vs. 140.25mm). If he has 19 inch rims (482.6mm), then his tire is 788.6mm in diameter (assuming total diameter is rim size plus 2 times sidewall size) versus mine at 763.1mm, a whopping one inch difference. But I think 255/60R18 is a super common tire size for LR3s and so that's the most likely one. 18 inches is 457.2mm, which means his tire diameter would be 763.2mm, which is essentially the same as mine.

I'm thinking that this is a go, assuming my math and tire savvy are correct, which is never a can't miss bet. Maybe I'll post a specific message about this Curt hitch and a full sized spare in an HSE to see if there's anyone on the forum who have directly faced this question.

Thanks again for the info,

Nick in Palm Springs