Is that the aluminum housing on that model? at some point they went to cast, could have been mid stream with that model. Alumimum I would be gentle with it - and go until snug using lock tite and leave it. Still a solid housing and well made.... Good luck and take your time

Thanks, I did have a large receiver on my last pickup. My use of the hitch is limited to towing an aluminum 16' fishing boat, not more than 1500 pounds. The turck is a new Chevy Colorade, 2WD (but with the great GM option of traction control and automatic locking differential, I look forward to seeing haw well that works as a substitute for light-duty 4WD needs) and the bumper isn't "too" high. I think I'll try the bumper and see how it goes (most trips are under 30 miles). By the way, the "T" adaptor to get into the break/running/turn lights is great. The package was under $40 and was installed in under 15 minutes. I don't know when truck manufactureres started providing that connector near the rear, but it is a great improvement.

Every car needs attention, but rarely do two otherwise identical cars need the exact same services. Yet when at the dealer, quick lubes, and especially many of the chain stores you will see this "flush this and flush that" mentality. Business consultants have pushed for the last decade or so that as a business "You can't make money fixing cars", you need to sell services. Their programs allow for one or two top technicians inside the organization who actually can fix cars. Then a few techs who are on the road to becoming a journeymen technicians, and then essentially entry level people which are of course on the low end of the pay scale. If the shop gives an entry level person even average difficulty work, the chance of a mistake occurring where the car has to come back is quite high. So they have in effect created an entire list of services that can be sold and performed where little to no experience is required by the tech and therefore they have a very low chance of a mistake occurring. These flush services are more profitable per hour than the shop can charge for major repairs. Consider this the second part of Newtons law, " where for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction". All of the price shopping for major repairs has stripped the profitability out of them, and at a dealer warranty work really tears the GP out of the equation. As a business they need a constant revenue stream to keep their doors open because true to the consultants description, they don't make money actually fixing broken cars so these services are sold and performed by an entry level group in order to subsidize the business when doing the more difficult, and especially warranty type repairs. Now do you need the differentials flushed, and the transmission serviced, injectors cleaned, etc? The fluid services are something I could only tell by looking at your owners manual, and by checking the conditions of the fluids myself. The problem here is even then the best that I can do is still subject to being a "subjective opinion". The injectors would only REQUIRE cleaning if your car was presenting a drive-ability symptom, otherwise, a bottle of cleaner once a year is just fine. A road test with the scan tool would show me if there was any chance of this being needed. The differentials are a simple drain and refill BTW, complete with easy to access drain and fill plugs (dipstick in some cases). Throttle body service? Easy to tell just by looking, as well as by watching the PCM control the idle speed with a scan tool. Many cars have a minimum idle speed, and the idle can be commanded with a scan tool to the lowest speed that the engine can reach. If the engine reaches the minimum idle speed without stalling, then the answer is "No", you don't require servicing. But consider this, the consultants have said its cheaper for the customer and the business to simply sell the service, than it is to employ and pay a technician who can and will perform the steps to test this and find out. You have seen price pressure from other posters here in this forum through the years that are the basis for the consultants advising the way they do. (Newtons Law again, that was the original action). Dollars and cents. The technician replacing a crankshaft in an engine is making the business around $100/hr gross profit while he costs the business $25-35 including benefits to be doing the repair. The flush routines can produce well over $250/hr gross profit for the business with close to minimum wage employees doing them. The crankshaft repair has a high risk of failure, the flushes extremely low risk. From that perspective, the consultants are correct. Anyone wonder why its difficult to find a real good technician/mechanic?

The door from the garage directly into the house is the most vulnerable access to your house. Once a thief is in the garage, he can work unobserved to access the locks on the entry door. On one house I owned, the garage was attached but didn't access the house directly. You had to exit the garage and then use another door to access the house. I received an insurance discount because there was no direct access to the house from the garage. And while locks cannot prevent all burglaries, you want to make it more difficult for the thief so that they will go someplace else.