etrailer | Roadmaster Direct-Connect Base Plate Kit Installation - 2018 Mini Cooper

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Full transcript: www.etrailer.com/tv-install-r...
Hello neighbors, it's Brad here at etrailer and today we're taking a look and installing the Roadmaster base plate for flat towing on a 2018 Mini Cooper. Now there's normally five main components that are required for flat towing your vehicle, and we'll start on the vehicle side. The first one's gonna be the base plate and that's gonna be the attachment point to the solid portion of the frame or bumper beam of the vehicle. And that's where you have your removable arms here that attach to your towbar. So that's gonna be our second component, the towbar, which is gonna be the connection point between the base plate of the vehicle and the hitch on the RV. Now going along with that, our base plate does have these loops here for our safety chains.
Our safety chains are gonna be that third component there, and that in case of an accidental disconnect, it is rare obviously, but this is gonna make sure that it stays attached to the RV. Now another thing that we have is our diode wiring and that's mounted up here and that's gonna send our light signals from the RV to the towed vehicle, so when you're using your running lights, brake lights or turn signals, the people behind you can know what's going on and that's gonna keep you safe and legal. Now there is one other component that we don't actually have on our Mini Cooper today, and that's a supplemental braking system. And this car falls under a weight category that's low enough to where you don't actually have to have one legally. Now it is a nice way to make sure that your vehicle slows and stops as you do that with the RV.
And normally you'll have a breakaway switch and that way in case of all of your components failing and it separating from the RV, that cable will pull and it's gonna put the brakes on the vehicle bringing it to a stop. But again, since we are under that weight capacity, we don't have that here and that's gonna be up to you and your state's legalities. Now this is what your base plate is gonna look like when you are ready to flat tow your vehicle. And you can see the removable arms here when attached. Put this out in a nice position, easy to hook up.
You also have your safety chain loops that protrude just far enough to where you can hook up without having to worry about your fascia getting hit. But also it's pretty subtle overall, even when you are unhooked. It's really nice too. There's also a mounting bracket for your diode wiring that keeps it nice and tucked center in the grille portion here. So overall, pretty easy installation without a ton of cutting.
Now when you're done flat towing your vehicle and you're ready to unhook, it's pretty easy here. We'll just get our hooks out of our safety chain loops, unhook our towbar here and our diode wiring. And then if you're gonna hit the road and you want your car to have that little bit more OEM look and you're not towing it, pretty easy to just twist and remove these arms by the pull of a pin. So that way you get a nice clean look as it utilizes the factory air vents here, so they're really no chopping up necessary. It's really nice that it fits right in there and everything looks really good when you're not hooked up. But even still it has a clean look overall and it's a pretty easy installation. So there's no real major cutting that you have to do. A little bit of trimming for your plug. You are gonna have to drill a hole for a mounting bracket here, but it's a really complete kit and it can be done fairly easily. Now you do have to take the front fascia off, but I'm gonna show you how to do that during the insulation portion. And whenever you're done and ready to go and ready to hook up, again, these are gonna be super easy to just slide in here and those are gonna snap into place. And that nice little snap of that ring means that it's locked in and you're ready to go. So all you have to do to get towing is hook up the rest of your components and hit the road. Now taking off the fascia of your vehicle does seem sometimes daunting, but also during your flat tow installation, to get all your components set up, it makes it easier to run all those components while the fascia's off. So once you do your base plate, you can leave this fascia off until you get everything in place and then it'll go together nice and clean. So speaking of the installation, let's go to the bay and take a look at how that's done. Now our installation is gonna require the front fascia coming off and that way we can get our base plate bolted up. But in order to start that process, we need to get the fascia off and we're gonna start here. We have three Torx bit