etrailer | Setting Up Your Blue Ox Base Plate Kit - 2013 Mini Clubman

Click for more info and reviews of this Blue Ox Tow Bar Base Plate: https://www.etrailer.com/Tow-Bar-Base... Check out some similar Tow Bar Base Plate options: https://www.etrailer.com/base-plates.htm Search for other popular Mini Clubman parts and accessories: https://www.etrailer.com/vehicle/2013... https://www.etrailer.com Don’t forget to subscribe!    / etrailertv   Full transcript: https://www.etrailer.com/tv-install-b... It's Brad here at etrailer and today we're taking a look and installing the Blue Ox base plate on a 2013 Mini Cooper Clubman. Now this is what your base plate is gonna look like when it's installed and it does a really good job of maintaining still your vents and really tucking close to the grill. So it's pretty well hidden. You still maintain a really clean look overall. Now I did omit a slight difference of mounting my breakaway switch down here. Originally they want it mounted up in the grill, so I saved having to trim that out. I just think aesthetically it looks a lot better to just trim out the bottom, but it's really up to you. It does have a mounting point for your six pole wiring, which is really nice. And you do have your safety chain loops, although they are pretty close to the grill, you'll still be able to get those attached. It's a pretty tight fit and it is gonna require trimming of the grill. You really can't get away from that unless you completely take out the grill. But overall I think it looks really good. And that's the main thing is the finished product does its job and looks decent in the process. Now going down the road, there's caps that they include that you can put into the receiver tube opening and that'll keep it from getting any buildup of, you know, road grime or rust and corrosion. And then when you are ready to tow, it's super easy to just take your removable arms, you'll just push these in and then this portion you just rotate pushing in and then it's gonna lock in place. When you need to remove them, super easy, just pull the pin, give it a quick twist and it's gonna slide out. Minis really don't have much ground clearance from you know, out the factory and the base plate does a good job of keeping it low, but just keep that in mind when hooking up. So from the bottom of the ground to the middle of our tab, it's about 12 and a half inches. And that's gonna be important when trying to get your tow bar to be nice and level with your towed vehicle. So measure from the ground to the center of the hitch pin hole on the hitch on your RV and the difference between that and the 12 and a half inches is gonna determine whether or not you need a high low adapter. If you want those two measurements within three inches of each other to keep the tow bar nice and level and have the car safely go down the road. So our neighbor today picked up a Curt high low adapter and this should put it nice and level. When you're ready to hook up to flat tow your Cooper, you're gonna just simply get your tow bar in place. And this is a Blue Ox tow bar, so it's gonna work well with this base plate. But not to worry if you have a different brand tow bar that you want to use, you can pick that up and get adapters or if you already have a used, say Roadmaster or something along those lines, you can get the adapters to mount up to the base plate. And this one just lines up, we'll put our pins in place and then our linchpins. Just like a trailer, we have our safety chains and those are gonna attach into our loops and it is tight, but it actually worked out pretty well here. And then we also have our breakaway switch, then we'll get our diode wiring, our tow bar wiring hooked up. And then all we need to do is get our vehicle in flat tow mode and we're ready to hit the road. When flat towing any car, including a Mini Cooper, there's gonna be five main components that are gonna be required to safely do it. And the first one's gonna be on the vehicle side. The base plate attaches structurally to the vehicle to the frame and that's gonna become the mounting point for the rest of your components and mostly your tow bar, which is going to tow the vehicle down the road. Tow bar is gonna be that connection point between the base plate and the hitch on the RV. Now going along with that base plate is a safety chain loop attachment. So just like pulling a trailer, we have our safety cables that'll go from the base plate to the hitch on the RV. We also have a supplemental braking system, which is gonna slow and stop the vehicle as you apply the brakes on the RV. And in case of a catastrophic disconnect, you have a breakaway switch. If this cable's pulled, it's gonna apply the brakes and that way it's not rolling down the highway. The vehicle's gonna come to a stop. Now