How to Choose a Hitch Rack for a Jeep Wrangler

Hi everyone, I’m Andy Shane, today we’re going to talk about the different types of Hitch Racks out there, no matter how you’ve set up your specific Jeep. We’re also going to talk about some of the things another bike carrier can improve your lifestyle and how often you might want to take your bike on your Jeep.

Here we have our hitch-mounted style bike rack. Now just like while our roof bike rack made some demands on our Wrangler, with a hitch style rack, of course, there is a big requirement: you must have a trailer hitch on the back of your Jeep.

Some features

Now there are many hitches on the market that you can install. In fact, some aftermarket bumpers even have a hitch built in so once you have the hitch on the back of your Jeep you have many different options. You’re basically ready to use a hitch-mounted bike rack, and just look at how to install it.

A hitch carrier offers many advantages. It brings our bike rack to a very comfortable level for loading and unloading our bikes. It is also a very strong and stable fastening solution for transporting bicycles. You can take not only your bike but also the whole family or your friends’ bikes on your next outdoor adventure and that’s a big advantage because you can take Jeep Wrangler JL to use a hitch-mounted luggage rack.

Every Wrangler Jl is delivered from the factory with a backup view camera, which is mounted here in the middle of the spare tire. So this is what you should keep in mind when installing a hitch carrier on a Jeep Wrangler Jl.

The vertical post of the rack does this right behind the camera so that it restricts the camera’s visibility while backing up. Something to be aware of one of the other things you may have when you are going on Wrangler came with the backup sensor system to warn you of objects behind the Wrangler.

If you’re using a hitch-mounted luggage rack that hangs under the vehicle, these sensors will pick up the bike rack and warn you that something is behind the jeep again, not really a big deal, just something to be aware of. If you have installed your hitch carrier, this reversing sensor will beep for you if your Jeep was equipped with it.

Some benefits

But some of the positive aspects that a tow bar rack can really offer you are the fact that it is a very convenient solution that you can attach to your Jeep and later easily remove and stow away when you don’t have to take your bikes with you.

It’s so easy to fit the luggage rack into the hitch and install the pin, and you are as good as ready to charge your bikes. And that’s great if you’re not someone who has to carry their bike around with you day in and day out instead maybe someone who wants to take your bikes with you for your outdoor weekend adventures. This is a great solution for that you don’t always have to have something left on your jeep.

As I mentioned earlier, it is very easy to load and unload your bikes when you use a hitch system. So you can see we only have a couple of straps here. We need to remove it so that we can pick up and take off our bikes very easily.

If you want to keep your hitch carrier installed on your Jeep, there are a few features you should look for that can be found in specific hitches.

The bike carriers have a great folding feature so we can simply remove the locking pin, drop the bike carrier arms down, reattach the pin and actually lock the arms in the down position. This is a nice compact solution if you’re backing up into a garage and not having to worry about getting around the rear of the vehicle and bumping into those mounting arms with mounting arms installed.

Of course, one of the other drawbacks to using a hitch-mounted bike rack is that it will limit your access to the cargo space of your Wrangler depending on the rack you choose. Some luggage racks have a great built-in feature where we can just pull a pin to lower the post and now we have full access to your Jeep’s cargo space again.

But of course, you should be aware that if you are using a hitch-mounted system, you are okay with going through pulling the pin folding it out of the way for access, and if not then you are looking for something that might be a little more permanent that you can put on the back of your Wrangler.