etrailer | Demco Hijacker Autoslide 5th Wheel Hitch Installation – 2022 Ford F-250 Super Duty

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Hey everybody ryan here at e-trailer today on our 2022 ford f-250 we’re going to be checking out the demco auto slide 18 000 pound fifth wheel for the trucks that have the oem prep package so ford really thought things through uh with these trucks having an oem prep package and that’s going to allow you to drop in a fifth wheel hitch like this or even a gooseneck

Uh very easily you know it’s already there for you so you plop this thing in lock it down and that’s really all there is to it but with that said um you know not every one of these trucks has that prep package it was actually an option so make sure your truck does have it if it does you’ll see small openings you know i think there’s five of them and one in each

Corner one in the middle if your truck doesn’t have that prep package there’s a ton of other options out there for you in regards to uh you know using fifth wheel hitches with that said one of the really cool things about this setup here is the fact that it is an auto slide okay and what that means is whenever you make really tight turns um what’s going to happen

Is the head of this will actually come back a little ways and give you some extra clearance and that’s really important especially with short beds you know you just don’t have the space like you do with a with a long bed and by you know sliding back that’s you’re not going to run the risk of you know having the top of your trailer you know contact the corner of

Your cab or break out the glass or anything like that and it might sound silly but it’s common we we’ve seen a few a few guys in here uh in the past that you know they decided to use a fixed type fifth wheel and their short bed you know you kind of forget about it you know and make a tight turn and end up destroying your truck definitely don’t want to do that so

To solve that issue you can use an auto slide like this uh with that said you know if you have a long bed this will still work nothing wrong with that at all with a long bed though you can have the option of using a fixed type fifth wheel as well so for those of you with the short bed definitely get some type of sliding fifth wheel uh whether it’s this one or a

Different one like a bmw something like that that would be my advice if you got the long bed you can get away they’re usually the fixed ones they’re usually a few bucks cheaper you can get away with the fixed one or use something like this choice is totally up to you as far as uh the fifth wheel hitch itself goes these things are actually pretty well built i mean

Solid steel this one’s rated for eighteen thousand pounds and uh you know they they thought things through try trying to make it as user friendly as possible so one of them the head articulates which should help you actually hook up to your trailer when you’re ready to you know if your trailer is not level or truck’s not level you know this can kind of move around

And uh make that a little easier on you i feel like too it’d probably help with the ride you know i’m not 100 sure i’m kind of just thinking out loud here but you know if there’s a little movement in this might help absorb some of the you know the bumps and stuff like that it has these guides too so what you can do is when you’re hooked up you can actually adjust

These guides to uh your pen box and that’ll help kind of just swoop everything right in there and uh just make it a little easier to hook up you know the jaws that actually go around your kingpin these things are no joke these things are super thick essentially complete contact all the way around so that’ll cover your whole entire kingpin and really you know for

Me it just gives me some confidence knowing that i have full contact there because it’s no joke you know pulling these heavy trailers around you don’t want to be as safe as possible the um handle mechanism and has a a safety pin here that way when it is locked in you know nothing’s gonna happen there um you know they they pull out pretty easy but not so easy

It’s a little concerning you know what i mean you want some force behind it there and that’s exactly it and then it’ll kind of auto lock too so this is going to simulate our trailer here so when you back up to it you see how that locks in that’s kind of a better view of you know that complete contact there when you’re when you’re hooked up you know you’re gonna

Do your thing and then uh put this pin back in so pretty cool features you know nothing out of this world but like i said they thought it through and any little thing that you can do to make it a little bit easier on your when you’re towing or hooking up uh it’s definitely well worth it so one thing i forgot to mention a moment ago when we were talking about you

Know this sliding back and give you that extra space so this is going to have about 14 inches right so that’s about how far back it’s going to slide and that’s how much more clearance you’re gonna have so pretty significant amount actually and i want to mention too the adjustability as far as the height of your head when it’s level because obviously you want you

Know your truck and trailer to ride level you don’t want you know your trailer sitting like this or nose diving um and this is pretty adjustable um so on our truck uh stock everything no lift kit or nothing and i have it on the um not the absolute lowest setting just one above that and the height of our head when it’s level so like this from the ground is about

54 inches i feel like most you know fifth wheel trailers they’re gonna ride pretty similar you know in terms of the height of them obviously you’re gonna have some change here but um you know this is gonna hit kind of hit all those sweet spots and generally speaking so let’s say if you were to go say if this was up too high okay the head was we still can make this

Sit a little bit lower and to me it looks like you know if i had to take a guess probably a couple inches you’re gonna get difference and then obviously we can bring it way up up high too i feel like most people are never gonna have to bring it up that high just because how big these trucks are right out of the factory so you definitely have some options there in

Terms of you know adjustability that way you can get everything as level as possible and when you do that that’s just gonna help your experience you know it’s gonna pull your trailer better uh be easier to hook up and and everything in between there i do want to address one of the questions we get asked a lot and that’s uh using these with a tonneau cover um and

It makes sense because let’s be honest you know these things are heavy and although easy to kind of set in and actually get in i mean they’re just heavy there’s no other way around it you don’t really want to unload it and everything else whenever you’re done using it if you can just leave it in here that’d be ideal right and so having a ton of cover it’s going to

Keep it protected or whatever the case is why you want a ton of cover so today we’re actually lucky enough you have one installed on our truck this is actually an oem ford one and like we said a minute ago this is on the uh one above the lowest setting in terms of height and if he closes down it looks like i mean i can easily get my fist in there so probably a

Good you know i’m just guessing here at least four to six inches easily uh of space we have here keep in mind you know if you raise it up a little bit i feel like you could pretty much raise this to the top chances are pretty good and still be able to clear but keep in mind too what type of tonneau cover you have so all these are going to be a little bit different

Depending on your tonneau cover and how you have your hitch adjusted but i feel like uh generally speaking you shouldn’t really run into any issues i’m sure there will be those uh those cases where you know you might just be that unlucky guy that has a weird ton of cover and have to raise this up this up high but for the majority of you uh you should be in pretty

Good shape in terms of leaving the hitch in here and still being able to close up your tonneau cover so now that we you know have a good idea how this one looks and works with the truck i figured it’d be useful just to kind of check out a couple of other ones so we have two more down here today this is the demco auto slide as well this was at 21 000 pound one i

Mentioned earlier essentially these are very very similar um you know there’s some some diamond plate here instead of plastic and i feel like everything you know it’s just a little bit beefier being having that little bit higher weight rating so not too too much of a difference there so if you like the 18 000 pound one that we we uh you know are talking about

And you just want something heavier definitely uh think about this one and then right here we have a b and w this is going to be good for 20 000 pounds this is the bmw companion um i really like bmw stuff um you know that’s not to take away from the demco auto slides at all those are really good products we’ve had good luck with them a lot of people have as well

But for some reason i’m just partial to bmw they make really good stuff um so this is how this hitch is going to look you know it shares a lot of the same features um you know it has a full clasp around your kingpin there on the actual fifth wheel head this one articulates as well and it’s kind of almost cushioned in here too where it sets so it might help absorb

Some road shock a little bit better and uh something that you know i like the idea of the auto slide so the way that slides back it just kind of happens automatically this one you can actually lock and unlock okay so right now it’s in the locked position this isn’t going to slide so um let’s say if you happen to have a long bed and you don’t really want it to

Slide you can lock it out or if you have a couple of trucks a couple work trucks one’s a short bed one’s a long bed so you have some versatility with this one but when you unlock it you know that’s when this is going to be able to slide and so you can kind of get an idea of that motion you know what i mean so when you’re when you’re taking those tight turns and

Everything you know this will slide back and and give you that space that you need so you know it works out pretty good both are really nice products it’s really just going to depend on what you’re looking for kind of what you like a little bit better but definitely would not hesitate to use any of these hitches for that matter in my own personal truck or even

Recommend them to my family or friends for those of you that are wondering you know how easy is this thing to put in and take out as far as hooking it up and everything simply drop it in and lock the handles right the hardest part is just the weight i mean it’s heavy um one person i probably wouldn’t recommend doing that um two people definitely doable if you

Got a third why not ask him for help but a couple of couple people you’ll be able to lift the thing in and and take it out with relative ease but other than that at the end of the day nice hitch you know it’s well built has a lot of those bells and whistles that kind of set it apart and and make it uh as user friendly as possible and that’ll finish up our look at

Of the demco auto slide 18 000 pound fifth wheel for trucks that have the oem prep package here on our 2022 ford f250

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etrailer | Demco Hijacker Autoslide 5th Wheel Hitch Installation – 2022 Ford F-250 Super Duty By etrailer.com