Is the tow hitch on your car, SUV or pickup truck ready for Johnsburg summer fun?

You’ve got your eye on that Princess 50 Flybridge yacht and you can almost feel the spray of water in your face as you imagine yourself navigating from the bridge spinning the tiller with cool and collected mastery. Well, none of this is very realistic. That 50-foot boat is too big for your Johnsburg driveway and it’s not the kind of boat that really fits Pistakee Lake. Additionally, it’s not the kind of boat you can tow behind your Prius.

There are numerous reasons to add a tow hitch to your car, SUV or pickup truck. You may use a trailer for hauling material for construction jobs. You may have horses and want to tow them in a horse trailer. Then again, you may have discovered that Johnsburg is a great area for outdoor activities and you’ll need to tow your new toys.

Those new toys could include a boat, though certainly something smaller than a 50-foot yacht. The toys could also include a pair of jet skis and/or a pair of Ski-Doo Snowmobiles. Having toys, such as these, you need to get the boat to the lake to fish, the jet skis to water to race or the snowmobiles to a snowmobile path to open those babies up.

Getting a boat, jet skis, snowmobiles or other toys to the appropriate playgrounds requires the correct towing equipment – a trailer and a tow hitch. It also requires an appropriately sized vehicle to do the towing.

When you add a trailer hitch to your vehicle, you want to know that the hitch and the vehicle are up to the task you have in mind. This means the right hitch and the right kind of vehicle.

To make it easy, hitches are dived into five classes and those classes include the specifications to consider for your towing needs. Here are the five classes and their specs:

Class #1 is a hitch you install on a passenger car. It uses a tow ball for a 1-1/4-inch receiving unit to pull a maximum of 2,000 pounds. This would include some cargo or maybe a small boat.

Class #2 is for sedans, minivans and crossovers. Also a 1-1/4-inch ball, it is a system that can pull up to 3,500 pounds for things like small campers and mid-sized boats.

Class #3 uses a minivan, pickup or SUV with a hitch to receive a 2-inch ball and pulling a maximum of 8,000 pounds. This is good for utility trailers, campers and mid-sized boats.

Class #4 requires a large pickup or SUV with a 2-inch ball and up to 10,000 pounds. You’ll use this for full-size campers, boats and utility trailers.

Class #5 is for commercial trucks and heavy duty vehicles with a 2-1/2-inch ball pulling between 17,000 and 20,000 pounds. You can pull a large utility trailer, livestock and big boats or campers with this rig.

It’s important that the trailer hitch is properly installed so it stays reliably attached to your vehicle and doesn’t cause any damage to your vehicle or whatever you’re towing. It needs to be mounted to solid parts of the car, SUV or pickup truck’s chassis.

Johnsburg and Pistakee Lake offer rich opportunities for fun. Just make sure you hitch up your toys safely and properly before towing them over to the playground.

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