As some may know, I'm in the middle of a ~3500 mile trip towing my Airstream with the X. Within about 5 days, I started to notice that there was a little play in my receiver. I could wiggle it ever so slightly back and forth, where it was perfectly tight beforehand. I'd estimate about 1/16th of an inch in each direction at most. However, as time went on, the play began to develop more and more and eventually I was concerned enough to reach out to Tesla and @JimVandegriff, who has been towing with an identical rig.
Tesla put me in touch with a ranger in Spokane, who met me right off of the highway and took a look. His main concern was if the adapter would "fall out" of the Bosal socket. There was little chance of that, as it was becoming harder and harder to remove even intentionally. Additionally, since I use weight distribution, there's at least some upward force into the hitch adapter that will push it into place. Still, he agreed that I should try a new adapter, and arranged for one to be overnighted to my campsite in West Glacier.
It was raining upon arrival so I didn't get around to trying the adapter until yesterday. I had a heck of a time removing the old adapter, and found it impossible to manually insert the new one. I was able to put the old one back in, but my determination got the best of me and I removed it again. I used a hydraulic bottle jack to aid in inserting the new hitch adapter, and with some effort eventually got it to snap into place. It's very snug. No play. And I'm quite certain it's never coming out.
I am keeping the old adapter throughout the trip but will be sending it to Tesla's engineering for analysis once I return. I just want a second adapter for backup purposes. When I return home, I believe I am going to do what @jason1466 is doing and install the Draw-Tite fixed receiver on my X.
My takeaway from this is that both the Bosal hardware in the bumper and the Bosal hitch adapter must be getting out of shape. I cannot come up with another good explanation for why it's difficult to remove the old adapter and why the new one barely fits. Additionally, the fact that the new one is snug means that there is some malformation in the receiving section of the Bosal package.
It's possible that weight distribution is causing this issue, but it's hard to point that finger at this point. I believe it's more likely that, because the Bosal hitch has very stringent requirements on ball height, it's not a great fit for most travel trailer applications.
@JimVandegriff can chime in here but has confirmed at least similar results to what I've seen.
Here is a video of the play, before I replaced the adapter.
Tesla put me in touch with a ranger in Spokane, who met me right off of the highway and took a look. His main concern was if the adapter would "fall out" of the Bosal socket. There was little chance of that, as it was becoming harder and harder to remove even intentionally. Additionally, since I use weight distribution, there's at least some upward force into the hitch adapter that will push it into place. Still, he agreed that I should try a new adapter, and arranged for one to be overnighted to my campsite in West Glacier.
It was raining upon arrival so I didn't get around to trying the adapter until yesterday. I had a heck of a time removing the old adapter, and found it impossible to manually insert the new one. I was able to put the old one back in, but my determination got the best of me and I removed it again. I used a hydraulic bottle jack to aid in inserting the new hitch adapter, and with some effort eventually got it to snap into place. It's very snug. No play. And I'm quite certain it's never coming out.
I am keeping the old adapter throughout the trip but will be sending it to Tesla's engineering for analysis once I return. I just want a second adapter for backup purposes. When I return home, I believe I am going to do what @jason1466 is doing and install the Draw-Tite fixed receiver on my X.
My takeaway from this is that both the Bosal hardware in the bumper and the Bosal hitch adapter must be getting out of shape. I cannot come up with another good explanation for why it's difficult to remove the old adapter and why the new one barely fits. Additionally, the fact that the new one is snug means that there is some malformation in the receiving section of the Bosal package.
It's possible that weight distribution is causing this issue, but it's hard to point that finger at this point. I believe it's more likely that, because the Bosal hitch has very stringent requirements on ball height, it's not a great fit for most travel trailer applications.
@JimVandegriff can chime in here but has confirmed at least similar results to what I've seen.
Here is a video of the play, before I replaced the adapter.
