Tow Package Wiring Harness

My 05 has a different trailer wiring harness than my former 02. I suspect that I'll have to rewire my boat trailer to accommodate the new harness. Has anyone done this? It looks to be fairly simple, but...

Any advice offered is appreciated.

I take for granted that your 02 had a 4-pin flat connection and I believe the 05 has a 7-pin round connection. Why not just buy a 7-pin round to 4-pin adaptor?... Probably wouldn't cost you more than $15 or so...

Just an example link: Hitch Wiring Adapters

EDITTED TO ADD: If I am way out in left field on this, I appologize...

Are you talking about the factory connector on a truck without factory installed receiver?

i'm guessing you might be referring to the 4 pin square connector that is (i think) behind the bumper?

If so, you do need to get a harness along with the hitch setup. the connector under the bumper is not meant to connect to the trailer...

If this is what you are talking about, you need something like this:

http://www.courtesyparts.com/Merchant2/m...ode=24167-00001

In addition to the hitch receiver itself.

I bet if you trace out what you had on your old X, it connects to something simular. The part number showed above is the same for 2005 and 2000-2004.

(NOTE: I'm "hitch shopping" right now - have not actually done the install yet)

I figured zates was referring to the harness on the boat trailer and not on his X...

Thanks to the both of you! I believe that the 7 pin to 4 pin will do the trick. Hope you both are enjoying your "X." This is my second. I loved my 02, but this is quite the upgrade! Nissan outdid themselves this time.

Can one of you guys post a pic of a factory trailer hitch installed. As to date I never saw one. The way that the hitch is located doesn't seem that there is any room there.
So pics would be nice guys snap away

A little surprised here that no one wants to take pics of there X's.

Ok if you have a hitch can you please take some pics.
Thanks

It may be that none of us opted for the factory hitch. I'm saving that $480 or whatever outrageous price it was and going down to U-Haul and spending $120 when they come out next month. This is a good question tho... I've stil got the wiring harness for my '02.

Ok, for those of you who bought the Xterra without a hotch and want to add one let me give you some help.

1.) Get the Class 3 hitch from your local dealer $136.00 with access step for the roof rack.

2.) You can't use the 4-pin flat wiring kit ($13.00). The connector does not fit the connecters on the 05 Xterra. Further more the connects on the truck are not hot (no power).

3.) I believe the way to go is to get the 7-pin wiring harness from courtesy nissan for $55. This kit includes a replay sub-harness that must make the connects in the rear of the truck hot (power). Once the 7-pin is installed you will need the 7-pin to 4-pin converter.

I hope this helps and saves you all time and trips going to Nissan for parts and harnesses.

Mike

Ok, the $55 harness includes a sub-harness with some relays. This connects in the passenger side kick panel. I believe this with make the connects at the rear of the truck hot. (powered)

I tried the sub-harness kit 24167-7Z000 and it wont connect to the 05 connection (in the rear of the truck)... even it it did, there would not be any power to these connections.

No pics yet

What pics do you want? I just got my 05 and it has the tow hitch. I know I could have gotten it cheaper outside, but it was the difference between getting my X now vs. May!

Anyways, I can take some shots if you tell me what exactly you want to see.

First of all - Congrats on the new X!!1

For pics - how about just a few angles of the rear bumper showing the factory set up?
Also, if you can swing it, under the bumper where the trailer harness connects to the main wiring harness.
Finally - the connector provided to plug into the trailer.

This might help us with the 4-pin/7-pin issue.
Thanks!

mjunda's comment that the $55 harness might be required suddenly adds a little complication/confusion to what was seemingly a very simple setup!

FASTDRMR: When you swapped out hitches at the dealer, did you notice power coming from a second connection? (buy the way - I got chuckle out of that whole thing - can't believe they let a "civilian" mess with their nice new trucks! Guess they know and trust you!)

Yeah, i know, I should just take the 10 minutes to climb under my X and check for myself!

The only connection I saw was about 12" behind the driver side rear tire. It is tucked up high by the frame, and should only take a minute to find. Its a baby blue color connector.

While you are down there, look at the last 9" of the frame, inside vertical face. You will see that there are 2 bolts holding the back bumper on, I believe 1 of these is shared with the hitch. Then there are 2 more threaded holes, those are also used by the hitch.

Another interesting note, on the 1st Gen everyone was given a harness... I have not seen mine yet (even though mine was originally supplied by the dealership with the hitch).

05_X - yes the dealership knows me very well. I am the Xterra guy.

mjunda - thanks for the info - looks like you are right on the money.

Just checked and the connector (located where Fastdrmr indicated) is a 6-pin connector. Furthermore, Courtesey Parts has changed their web site and they no longer show the $13 4 pin square to 4 pin flat connector as what to get for the 05, they show the $55 set up that mjunda talks about. (the info on courtesy parts is what lead me to believe it was a 4-pin connector in the first place.)

Pretty cool for those of you using trailer brakes. However, all I want are the lights (standard flat 4-pin). Looks like I gotta get the $55 and the adaptor, or do some wacky custom thingy. Kinda overkill to just run lights!

Where are you guys finding the hitch for 136.00?? I just went to Courtesyparts and they are like 264.00 now. WTF? Thats steep. Better then my local dealer who wants 340 or some crazy thin like that.
Man this hitch is going to set me back I can tell now.

A few dealers and CourtesyParts WERE selling them for around $126 a while back. Sounds like someone screwed up the pricing back then because now it seems like everyone (including courtesy) is selling them for the (much) higher price. Those of us who got the $126 deal were lucky i guess - and to think I was complaining about the shipping charge!

If you are finding different prices, make sure the difference is not due to one of them including the $55 harness, and the other not.

A lot of people here get hitches from U-Haul. That should be much cheaper - closer to the $130 if they have 'em for the 05 yet.

Yeah, I got my hitch from Courtesy Parts back in April for 126.35 USD. Now they sell it for 264.67 USD, a little more than double the price.

I just pulled out my invoice and that's actually what I paid too, back in March. Those were the days! :rolleyes:

Your telling me. Now I don't feel so bad about the $75.00 shipping charge I paid.

I called a local dealer and they quoted $136 so I went down and picked it up. . .at the time, courtsey was still selling for the $126 but about a week later they started the $264.

I would check with some local dealers to see if any are still selling for the $130 or so price.

Doesn't surprise me they raised the price, for about $200 to $250 you could install in 30 minutes what costs $450 from the factory. Nissan probably raised the price so more people would order from factory with hitch already on.

I talked with the dealer yesterday, the $126 price (my dealer used to have it at $130) was most likely a pricing mistake that Nissan just noticed and fixed. He said the same thing happened with the step rails for the Pathfinder when the new model was released, you were able to get them for $99 for awhile before Nissan noticed and Jacked the price to $299.

In any case, I just got my hitch for $292 and the 7 Pin Harness for $55. Add in tax, and its cheaper than it would have been to buy and ship from CourtesyParts. And even though they had to order the parts, I'll have them in 2 days.

Brendan

I'm still trying to figure this out before sterting messing with my hitch harness. Going with $55 harness and pluging everything in in the back of the truck, will I get power to the lights of the trailer (I'm not interested in brakes)? Or do I have tofirst install the passenger side connector to get the rear, under-the-car wires HOT?

Not sure if you HAVE to have the connections installed in the passenger kick-panel to get the rear connectors hot... But, you get those passenger kick-panel connectors INCLUDED with the $55 harness.

So, just install them, it's like 5 more minutes. The instructions are a little ambiguous though, don't skip over anything.

The hardest part of the whole project is determining how to mount the 7 pin plug to the hitch. If you have a factory hitch, it's no big deal as there's a bracket pre-welded. A non-factory hitch has no bracket, so I had to fab my own.

Good luck.

Mounted mine in the bumper. Very easy and quick installation.

You're best off getting an aftermarket hitch (I got a Draw-Tite at hitchfinders.com, I think they go for about $130 (+frt) now

For full functionality (and possible better resale value), spend the extra bucks & get the factory harness. Don't let the lack of a connector mounting bracket phase you - just do an in-bumper mount like several of us have done to keep the connector up & out of the way. Like I did (clicky) .

Good Luck!

Yeah, if I had thought of that, I probably would have done it instead of fabbing my own bracket. As it turns out, I'm pretty happy with the little bracket I created, looks good, matches the hitch.