Trailer Saver BD3 First Impressions

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This is a continuation of my previous post, Hitching Up.

I received the Trailer Saver BD3 and Simple Slide today and installed them in my truck. The shipping depot dropped it on top of my rails with a fork lift, so I could close my tailgate, and it slid around a lot on the way home. I should have bothered with tying it down, but it was less than two miles. It made for an interesting ride, though. When I got home and pulled all the shrink wrap off of it, I broke it down into three pieces. The hitch head, the hitch base, and the slider. This allowed me to get it off the pallet by myself and reassemble it in 80lb segments.  Once I finally had it all situated, I realized it sat above the rails of my truck and I wouldn’t be able to close my tonneau cover. That was never a problem before, so I took a moment to look into it. There are six 3/4″ bolts on each side of the hitch that allow for you to adjust it up/down. They were in the default position featured on the website and most of the pictures I can find online, but those hitches are not sitting in a Simple Slide. With the Simple Slide, the hitch is raised approximately one adjustment setting on the hitch, so I moved it down one setting and it sits much more nicely in the truck, slightly higher than my other PullRite (which had no height adjustment) and should settle to the appropriate height once weight is applied to it. The one complaint I have about this is that they should assemble the hitches in the lower position if they are being shipped with a Simple Slide. I’m sure their logistics don’t currently allow for that, as this was probably a fully assembled hitch grabbed after I ordered it and dropped into a Super Slide for shipment. However, that one change would leave me without chipped paint and finish issues where the original bolts were.

Another slight issue I found is that the release bar doesn’t clear my tonneau rails, but that’s only an issue if the trailer is severely unlevel relative to the truck and pushing the hitch head down towards to the driver’s side. A S or Z shaped bar might be more fitting for users with tonneau covers, rather than the straight release bar they provide. Since this isn’t even a part of the hitch, but just an auxiliary piece that is provided with it, I might fabricate something at a later date to address this. It would be nice if this was something they offered in their store.

I did test the slide mechanism, and it worked really well. It takes a lot of force to move the hitch once the lock is released, but that won’t be an issue with a trailer attached, and it works exactly as I would expect it to. Simple, as the name implies, but functional.

Overall, I’m happy with the hitch, and can’t wait to tow with it. It’s a substantial hitch and despite the bolt/nut-induced finish issue, looks extremely well made. I’ll post another update once I’ve towed with it.