I was helping my Dad clean out a shed yesterday preparing for their move and found a Toyota ball mount (PT228-89445). Since he's never owned (or wanted) a Toyota in his life I'm not sure why he had it but that's neither here nor there I guess.

At any rate this tag was attached to it and I'm wondering why you mount it different ways depending on whether you're driving a V6 or a V8?

I have this same ball mount that I used with my 4Runner and mounted it the way the tag shows but now I have a GX so I'm wondering if I should change the ball around?

 

I saw this when I bought my mount and figured the V8 vehicles have a higher tow and load rating so the hitch is raised slightly to adjust for suspension squat with the extra weight.
At least that's my theory.

 

Hmmm….do I just swap the ball around then or just buy another ball and have one in each direction…decisions, decisions.

 

The engine does not dictate the ball height. When towing a trailer the trailer should be level or angled slightly down at the tongue, a tongue angled up can induce sway. Flipping this ball mount over results in either a 1" rise or 1" drop of the ball, I have no idea why Toyota would label it like that

 

Thinking more about this the V6 and V8 may have different hitches mounted on the vehicle. My V6 4Runner had a receiver just bolted to the rear crossmember, the V8 version had a much larger drawbar attached to the side frame rails, the V8 version had a higher tow capacity and was mounted lower when compared to the rear bumper.

 

You make a valid point on both the trailer being level as well as maybe there's a height difference between the different hitches.

Whenever (if ever) Lexus finally puts the Class IV hitch back up for sale I'll measure the difference in height from the Curt that I have currently to the Lexus hitch.

Unless someone wants to measure the height from the ground to the bottom of their Lexus 2" receiver tube for me?

 

Went out in my boxers just for you. Haha.

It's 1'-2.25" or 14.25".

 

Thank you sir

The Curt is 14.5" to the bottom of the ball mount when installed whereas yours is 14.75" it appears.

I do have 31" tires though so that would make the Curt 14.25" on OEM tires. Are you running OEM tires?

 

Yup, my GX is 100% stock for now.