Car accessories Power fist 51"X30" steel hitch mounted carrier review

Power fist 51"X30" steel hitch mounted carrier SKU: 8304974

Product use:

Hauling items like scooters, snowblowers, lawn mowers...​

Price:

$239.99 (Canadian)
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Length of time you owned or used the product:

Bought in December 2015
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Pros:

• Somewhat decent price, available locally (at least for me but can also be ordered online)
• Comes with a anti rattle clamp.
  
• Does what I need.

Cons:

• Paint seems cheap
• Seems built well enough for my 175 lbs snowblower. Not just I would use it to carry up to the 500 lbs max weight.

Summery:

I have only been using it for a short period of time. I use it to haul around my snowblower during storms. So I have three trips on it so far. I hauled it home which included a 30 minute drive on the highway and the rest of the time has been on secondary roads.

The anti rattle clamp is nice to have. It doesn't seem to hold well on the rounded edge of my Curt hitch (#13432). I will look for a way to correct this.

It would be nice if the sat a couple of inches farther out from the bumper. This would let the me lay the ramp down flat into the carrier. As it sits it hits the spare tire on the Jeep. On vehicles without a rear mounted spare tire, this won't be an issue at all. To get around this I only need to pull the hitch pin, slid it out of the hitch a bit, lift or lower the ramp and put it back in. I don't worry about that because I leave the ramp mounted in the upright position anyway. Laying flat I'm sure it would bounce and make noise. So it is fine where it is.

The paint seems to chip and scratch easily. I have had it on for the last couple of weeks. I only planned on using it when I need to haul the snowblower but I leave it on if there is a storm in the forecast. I have noticed some light rust already. I feel this is due to cheap paint. It is pretty much a flat black paint so it will be easy to touch up. I would like to use some bed liner or something like that to cover some high wear areas. One area is the end of the ramp that rest on the ground.

I will keep this thread updated and I use it more.



In the parking lot when I bought it at Princess Auto. I didn't want to risk damaging my interior by tossing it in the 2 door Wrangler so I assembled it in the parking lot. Didn't take more than 20 minutes or so.



A blurry picture of it on the Jeep with the ramp laying flat.



Ramp in the upright position.



A better quality picture with it in action. I just came back from clearing my mothers driveway.

James

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Here is a short video of me unloading the Toro 826 OXE from the carrier. I idled the engine down a bit to keep it from going down the ramp too fast. Loading it was just as easy. I will get a video of that at some point.



James

 

So far this carrier is going strong. It will need some paint touch up on scratches that rusted but that is minor.

I will look at molding the bars that hold up the ramp. They get in the way when dropping the ramp. I will bolt them to the main carrier.

I might also add some tie-down mounts so the straps stay in place.

I an still planning a full video review as well so stay tuned for that.

James