The Best Trailer Hitches and Towing Accessories

For most people, the hitch decision comes down to whether it fits your exact vehicle — and CURT wins that fight. The company's fit database covers more than 20,000 application-specific hitch SKUs, the broadest vehicle coverage of any aftermarket hitch maker in North America. That's not marketing fluff; it's the difference between bolting a hitch into existing frame holes in two hours and spending your weekend drilling. Owners of Kia Sorentos, Hyundai Santa Fes, and half a dozen other crossovers report the same thing: it lines up.

The 13195 is a receiver hitch, so it's the foundation, not the whole system. The ball and ball mount are sold separately, which sounds like a nickel-and-dime move but actually works in your favor. You pick the drop or rise that levels your particular trailer instead of paying for a ball mount that's wrong for your setup. Gross trailer weight and tongue weight ratings vary by application, so check the number for your vehicle, not the class.

Install is the part people worry about, and it shouldn't be. Owners consistently describe it as simple but not effortless — a few hours, better with a jack under the hitch to hold the weight while you start the bolts, and much better with someone handing you hardware. CURT's instructions get good marks, and there are walkthrough videos for most popular vehicles. If your exhaust hangers are rusted, budget extra time and some penetrating oil.

Build quality is the quiet reason this one keeps getting recommended. The steel is thick, the welds are clean, and the black finish holds up to weather. Like every Class I–V hitch sold in the US, it's built to the SAE J684 standard, which requires fatigue cycle testing beyond 100,000 cycles at rated load. CURT backs it with a limited lifetime warranty to the original purchaser, which matters for a part you'll leave bolted under a vehicle for a decade.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

Packaging is the recurring complaint. These ship as bare steel in thin cardboard, and boxes arrive torn with scuffed paint often enough that you should expect it. The damage is cosmetic and a can of touch-up paint fixes it, but check that the hardware bag is still inside the box before you start, because it sometimes isn't.

Amazon's fit checker isn't always right about this part. Several owners report being told it wouldn't fit their vehicle, buying it anyway, and having it bolt up perfectly. Cross-reference CURT's own fit guide rather than trusting the listing, and be ready to return it if you guess wrong.

The 13195 carries a limited lifetime warranty to the original purchaser.

Once your trailer clears about 5,000 pounds behind a half-ton vehicle, a plain ball mount stops being enough. Weight is hanging off the back, the front of your tow vehicle gets light, and steering goes vague. A weight distribution hitch uses spring bars to push some of that tongue load back onto the front axle and the trailer axles. The Equal-i-zer does that job and adds sway control in the same hardware, so you're not bolting on separate friction bars.

The four-point design is what separates this from cheaper sway setups. Instead of one friction bar damping motion at a single point, four independent contact points resist the trailer's tendency to rotate around the ball. Equal-i-zer's own testing and long-running RV forum data both point to oscillation reductions above 90% versus a bare ball mount on loads between 6,000 and 14,000 pounds. Owners pulling 35-foot trailers in 40-mph crosswinds describe the same result in plainer terms: the trailer stays put.

It's rated well beyond what most people need, which is a good thing. At 16,000 pounds GTW and 1,600 pounds tongue weight, you're not running it near its ceiling with a typical 10,000-pound travel trailer, and headroom means the spring bars aren't working flat out on every trip. The kit includes a standard hitch shank. The 2-5/16-inch ball is not included, so add that to your order.

Setup takes patience the first time and about five minutes after that. You're setting bar tension, adjusting the ball height so the trailer sits level, and getting the L-brackets right. Owners who take an afternoon to dial it in report it stays dialed. Keep the friction surfaces greased per Equal-i-zer's guidance and it stays smooth.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

It's noisy. This is the single most consistent owner complaint, and it's inherent to how friction sway control works — metal sliding on metal at the brackets creates popping and groaning on turns and in parking lots. Grease reduces it. It doesn't eliminate it. Back the trailer at a sharp angle and you can pop a locking tab off a mount.

It's also heavy and awkward to move around, which is the tradeoff for steel construction at this rating. And weight distribution hitches are trailer-specific in ways that catch people out — the wrong tongue weight rating or an incompatible A-frame means it won't set up correctly. Returns on something this bulky get expensive, so confirm your trailer's numbers before you buy.

The whole point of this hitch is that you can pick it up. Traditional fifth-wheel hitches are hundred-plus-pound steel assemblies that live in your truck bed whether you're towing or not, and getting one out is a two-person job with a lot of swearing. Andersen builds this one from aluminum, and owners routinely install or pull it alone in under five minutes. If your truck also hauls mulch, plywood, and dirt bikes, that's the difference between a usable bed and a permanently occupied one.

It mounts to a gooseneck ball rather than bed rails, and it's SAE certified at 24,000 pounds gross trailer weight with 4,500 pounds of tongue weight. Two height settings — 17-9/16 or 19-9/16 inches from the bed to the top of the ball mount — cover most truck and trailer combinations. The base has a 3-1/4-inch offset, which keeps it stable without eating much bed space.

The remote latch cable is the feature you'll appreciate on a rainy night. You connect and disconnect from outside the bed instead of climbing over the tailgate in the dark. Owners hauling 12,000-pound fifth wheels across the country describe the hookup as smooth and the ride as steady, which is the combination you want from a hitch you'll use dozens of times a season.

One thing to be clear about: this is an adapter, not a complete system. You need a gooseneck ball in your truck bed already, either factory-installed or from an aftermarket underbed kit. Some owners find the Andersen ball insert doesn't match a factory hole and use their truck's original ball instead, which works fine.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

It only makes sense if you already have, or plan to install, a gooseneck ball. Adding an underbed gooseneck system to a truck that doesn't have one is real money and real labor, and at that point a conventional rail-mount fifth-wheel hitch may pencil out better.

Aluminum doesn't have steel's reputation for taking abuse, and while the SAE certification and the rating say otherwise, some longtime towers stay skeptical. There's also a ceiling here — at 24,000 pounds GTWR it's plenty for most fifth wheels, but heavy equipment haulers will want a dedicated gooseneck setup with more headroom.

Tongue weight is the number almost everyone gets wrong. It should sit between 10 and 15% of gross trailer weight per NHTSA guidance — for a 10,000-pound trailer, that's 1,000 to 1,500 pounds. Too little and the trailer sways. Too much and your front end goes light and steering gets vague. Consumer Reports found that 68% of first-time towing buyers underestimate tongue weight by more than 15%, and NHTSA ties improper loading directly to sway crashes.

This ball mount takes the guesswork out by putting a scale where the load actually is. The shank contains a hydraulic gauge that reads tongue weight as the trailer settles onto the ball. Owners who checked it against certified scales report it tracking closely, including when they added known weight to the coupler and watched the gauge move to match. You reload the front of the trailer, look at the dial, and you know.

The adjustability is the second reason to buy it. A 6-inch drop and 7-inch rise, adjustable in 1-inch increments, covers a wide spread of trailer heights without buying three different ball mounts. Getting the trailer level matters more than people realize — a nose-high trailer shifts weight off the tongue and invites sway, and a nose-low one loads it up. The 12,500-pound GTW rating covers most bumper-pull travel trailers and boats.

It's built heavy, which is both a compliment and a warning. At around 19 pounds it's more than a plain ball mount, and owners consistently describe the steel and finish as solid. That heft is part of why the scale mechanism stays accurate under real load.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

The scale is a mechanical part in a harsh environment, and some owners report it failing. Weigh Safe covers it under a limited lifetime warranty and handles repairs, including free return shipping in the first year, but you may be without the hitch for a stretch. Treat the gauge as a helpful instrument, not something to trust blindly forever.

The ball sits in a cup rather than being a plain fixed ball, and a few owners have found coupling and uncoupling fussier than expected because of it. Wrong-size shipments also come up — check that the drop you received matches the drop you ordered before you install it.

Weigh Safe covers the Aero with a limited lifetime warranty.