Hitch Plug Thievery!

[bonknhead]

I'm about to replace the hitch plug for the third time in as many months. Is there something the rest of you do to keep petty thieves from taking the plastic hitch plug with the Lexus logo on your receivers?

[dougjohn]

You can get the ones with the Toyota label on them -- the petty theives don't seem to like them as much.

Seriously though, I don't think there's any way to keep the plastic ones in place -- they're not long enough to lock. You could go high-dollar and get one of the metal ones -- I think I saw some at the dealership when I was at mine recently. These typically have a lock or you can get a locking hitch pin.

Or you could just go without the plug cover -- that's what I did for the longest time until I found a black plastic toyota hitch plug on the trail one day.

Cheers,

Doug

[usamgdirect]

After replacing the rubber plug twice, I purchased the metal one and a hitch lock. No problem since.

Advise not to replace rubber pluc but instead go straight to metal. You'll save money and trips to the dealer in the long run.

[Rookie]

I've wondered how long it would take before mine would get stolen. I've thought about drilling two holes each side of the square plug section and putting a pin in it the same width, then loop a small chain around the pin and run the ends through one of the hitch holes and lock it with a small lock.

How much for the metal plug and hitch lock?

Any trouble with the hub caps? Seems like they'd be easy enough to scarf, especially now that I've got them all painted up and purdy.

Thanks,

Rookie

[dougjohn]

Hubcaps seem to fly off on the freeway. I lost one and found it again on the side of the interstate. Then lost the same one again.

I've found a couple of LC caps with the Toyota symbol on the side of the road.

Not that it matters much to me now -- I'm currently running without caps.

...

Doug

[bonknhead]

Rookie, I did the exact same thing you're thinking about, but it didn't work. I drilled a 3/16" hole on both sides of the receiver (with the plug in as far as possible) as close to the lip as possible, and put a 3/16x2 3/4" bolt through, putting a small nut on the end. Not impossible to remove, but a kid won't be carrying two 3/16" wrenches with them, right? I lost the plug a week later. The problem is, the plug is too short, and the hole I put in it was only about 1/4" from the end. With a little force, you could pry it loose.

I bought a third plug, and this time put about five layers of electrical tape around the plug. It's a real tight fit. We'll see how long that lasts.

[Rookie]

Well I finished working on rigging mine this weekend. Here's what I did: took a 1/4" machine bolt and cut it down to 2" long (width of receiver), drilled a 1/4" hole through each side of the plug (about 1/2" from logo side of plug), ran the bolt through one hole, ran nut on the bolt, threaded bolt thru chain loop, then put second nut on bolt and ran end of bolt flush out thru other hole in plug. Tighten two interior nuts outward to interior faces of plug (back nutted them).

Final steps- I ran the chain all the way thru the receiver and tied it to one of the bumper mounting bolts.

To get it off, the thru-bolt in the plug would have to rip through about 1" of the rubber plug on both sides. I don't think it can be done by just pull on it by hand, but if so - it's going to look like a plug that's been ripped off.

We'll see.

Rookie.