I have seen a lot of positive comments regarding the Cooper Crap hitch. What I'm wondering specifically, is there anyone out there who is actually using it with a bike rack and four bikes? My intended set up would be the hitch plus the Yakima Swing Daddy rack which is capable of carrying up to four bikes. The total weight of the rack and bicycles could exceed 150 pounds, though not exceed the 200 pounds of tongue weight the hitch is rated for.

Does anyone have experience carrying for bikes with this hitch? Given the rating, it should be fine. However, I would love any input from people using a setup like this in the real world.

 

given cooper craps reputation, i wouldn't trust anything from them

 

Care to elaborate? I haven't seen anything other than positive feedback on the forum from people who have used their stuff.

 

I purchased one from them a few years back...with those exact needs for our summer trips to the Cape. Added a Thule 4 place swing back rack and everything worked great. When you don't want the hitch, a few minutes is all that's needed to remove it from the existing countryman built in supports. It actually blends in pretty nice with the rear of the countryman.
Since then I've built a wheel carrier for my 19" 5th wheel that attaches in place of the bike carrier for longer trips. Very happy with everything...did need to re-powder coat it....but that was my choice and that's what we do...

 

I used a Cooper Crap hitch to pull a motorcycle trailer numerous times, works AWESOME....I picked mine up from the Cooper Crap's Owner (Andy), had a great day there and they are good people. I have no idea where the reputation slam comes from above????? It worked on my ALL4 and now on my FWD S

 

Troll.

 

formerly known as finish line west,
the owner of cooper crap has pissed off a lot of folks in the jeep world, screwed people over and ripped off other designs. I know people that were taken advantage of by the owner. He even went as far as colluding with another business to make themselves look better on another forum, til people found out the ruse and called them on it. He went and deleted all posts from said forum like a child. So no, I'm not a troll, and won't buy any of their CRAP and would warn others from doing so as well, just trying to be helpful

 

Well, aside from whatever conspiracies were going on, I did get the Cooper Crap hitch and it has been a great solution so far. Easy to take on and off and does what I need it to do.

 

Looking for a solid hitch solution in order to mount a rear cargo box. This is pretty spendy but looks to be the most solid hitch on the market, that doesn't require mild body modifications.

I've read about the wiring here on the forum, any tips about what's needed and how to? Thanks, the new guy.

 

You got pics of your setup?

 

I to have had Crap's hitch for a few years and have adapted it to a variety of uses. Bike Rack, 5th wheels carrier.....

 

Sorry for the late response. This is from a trip this past weekend. ~600 miles with bikes on the back. Worked great.

 

nice. how many bikes did you carry and roughly whats the total weight including the bike rack? thanks.

 

We had 2 this weekend but have had 4 before without incident. The rack is a Yakima Swingdaddy and weighs 50 lbs. The hitch is rated to 200 lbs of tongue weight. It would be hard to have 4 bikes hit 150 lbs, but you might be able to get close with the heaviest of mountain bikes.

 

my bike rack (1up brand) for 3 bikes weight about 75lbs and my 3 bikes weight about 75lbs also. total 3 bikes & rack 150lbs. my concern is that the rack will stick out 36" from the hitch. so 150lbs might become heavier because of the leverage (not sure if this is the right term)

 

Valid concern.....the hitch is mounted via the shipping bolt holes. While fairly strong a well suited for horizontal forces, push pull, the leverage from the rack tries to bend the mounting bolts down. You probably notice a fair amount of bouncing with that setup. The bolt holes are supported by sheet metal, enough stress cycles may cause cracks.

 

 

The thing to be concerned about is not the total weight of the bikes on the rack, but rather the leverage that's being put on the hitch by a 3-4' lever arm with that weight on it. If you work this out you'll be way over a 200lb tounge weight.

 

exactly my concerned. the total of my set up (3bikes + rack) is about 150lbs. but the rack is sticking out 3ft from the hitch. I'm pretty sure the weight will be more than 150lbs because of the leverage. I don't know how to calculate though, anybody can here can show me how?

 

Just to revisit this old thread and provide an update, our Cooper Crap hitch failed yesterday after a year or so of use. We only had the Yakima bike rack and 2 light road bikes on it. A weld on the hitch failed. Luckily, everything remained attached. There were four of us in the car and we were in Milwaukee driving to Chicago when it failed. We had to put our two friends on the Amtrak so we could lower the rear seats and put the bikes and the bike rack in the rear of the car. Still, it could have been much worse.

In any event, I wanted to pass this along in case anyone intended to use the Cooper Crap hitch for bike transport like we did.

 

We have an Allen Sports 3-bike hitch rack from Amazon ( ). It was pretty solid in my wife's old Subaru Outback, but with three bikes on it and mounted to the Cooper Crap hitch mount, it bounces alarmingly in the rear view mirror. The torque of the weight of them all seems to twist the pipe. We only use the rack for short local trips now. I'm thinking about replacing the Crap mount with a more rigid one.

Love the no-drill, no-cut install, though.