If you love the ocean and like doing outdoor activities like surfing, boating, kite-boarding, swimming. You would have come across the problem of where to store your car keys. This is where the Hitch Safe Key Vault HS7000 comes in. Safely store your money and car keys in your tow ball receiver.
Table of Contents
Hitch Safe Main Features
- Secure your credit cards, keys, watches, and other small valuables during outdoor activities that are a pain to carry, or can become lost
- The Hitch Safe Key Vault has an all-metal construction which is strong. It’s also powdered coated, to resist rusting.
- The key vault is self-secured inside the receiver. No tools are required to install or remove.
- Set and change your own favorite 4 number pin combination, with 10,000 possible pin numbers.
- Easy to Install
- Includes a heavy-duty rubber rain and dust cover that hides and protects your valuables.
When I was younger I liked to surf and my wetsuit had this little pocket built-in with enough room to store 1 car key. This is before key-less entry and immobilizers, which are now full of electronics. My car key was just a stranded metal key, so there was no problem if it got wet.
Now days just about all vehicle keys are full of electronics. Salt water will destroy these keys in no time. Now factor in a replacement factory key for your SUV, they can go for hundreds of dollars due to the fancy inbuilt immobilizers and keyless entry.
Convert your Tow Ball into a Concealed Vault
Many cars and four-wheel drives already have a Tow Ball or receiver hitch installed. The all-metal HitchSafe can convert your receiver into a small strong safe. The hitch pins are secured inside the receiver via 2 sliding pin bars that can only be accessed with a 4-dial pin combination. This makes up to 10,000 different possible combinations.
- Weight: 1.8 lbs
- Height: 3″
- Width: 3″
- Depth: 4.75″
Check out the price of the Hitch Safe over at Amazon
What’s Inside the Hitch Safe Lockbox
- Safety Vault that slides into the receiver
- 10,000 pin Number combination drawer
- Rubber Dust / Rain cover
- 2 Nickel Cadmium Bolts which interlock with sliding bars inside the vault.
- 2 foam O-rings to seal bolts and stop water ingress
- 4 foam flange seals/spacers to stop vibration and water ingress.
Lock your keys in the Hitch
The Hitch Safe Key Vault has been designed to fit into a standard 2-inch square hitch receiver, for trucks, SUVs, or vans. This car lock-box has plenty of room for a full set of keys and some credit cards.
It can be a permanent solution or not, it is up to you. The Hitch Safe Key Vault can be easily removed if a Tow Ball is required to be inserted. All you need to do is quickly remove the combination key safe and reinstall your Tow Ball.
How to Use Hitch Safe
- Pop off the rubber dust cover.
- Enter your four-digit pin code.
- Release lever to unlock. Push down
- Spring-loaded drawer comes forward.
- Remove the secret compartment and either add or remove an item.
- Push the hitch receiver back in to lock.
- Change pin codes to a random number. The job is done.
How to install the Hitch Safe Key Vault
- First, change the pin to 0000 which is the default factory combination.
- Press the unlock button down and remove the safe drawer.
- Slide one length of the locking bar out and remove its pin. Do the same to the other side.
- Push the Hitch Safe housing into the vehicle receiver, and line up the holes. You can use the supplied gaskets to pack out the receiver hitch safe if required.
- Once lined up make sure the 2x locking bars are fully retracted out.
- Push in the 2x locking pins in. These have the o-rings on them, a good time to grease them up a little.
- Push both locking bars fully in, this will secure the pins into place. Pull-on the Pin Bolts to make sure they don’t come out and are fully locked in and secured.
- Push the Hitch Key Vault into place and change the pin code if required.
Your car hitch vault is now installed and ready to be used. Removal is just as easy but in reverse. Once removed you can then install your favorite unique hitch cover, to fill in the blank hole.
Check out the video below to see how easy it is to install the Hitchsafe yourself.
How to Change Hitch Safe Pin Number
So it’s probably not a good idea to use the default trailer hitch lock pin number. As shown above, the combination number that is set when you get the safe is 0000.
So how do you change the Hitch Safe Pin Code? Well, it’s easy and will take about 30 seconds.
- First, open the Hitch draw using the default combination of 0000 and pulling the key safe out.
- Look to the right of the Hitch Safe and you will see a small screw with a slot, turn this screw 1/4 turn clockwise using a screwdriver until the slot is vertical.
- Change the dial to your favorite pin combination. Maybe use a pin number you already use so you don’t have to remember another pin number. Write it Down Same where safe.
- Once you have the new Pin Number set, turn the same screw 1/4 turn anti-clockwise.
- Test Out your Safe Hitch before placing it into your vehicle by pressing down the release latch. If you see the locking tabs retract you are good to go.
- Place the Tow Hitch Safe back into its receiver and change the combination. Well done it’s now locked, and you have a new pin number.
Check out the video below to see how to change the pin number on your trailer hitch safe.
Outdoor Activities where Keys are an issue
Hitch Safe Key Vault can store your spare keys for quick and secure access. You can use it for sharing access to your car or house with friends or family members. Especially situations such as outdoor sports where carrying keys, credit cards or money can be an issue. If these items are left inside the car or attached via a magnet to the underside of a wheel arch, they would run the risk of being stolen.
Great for:
- Kite-Boarders
- Surfers
- Bushwalkers
- Photographers
- Runners
- Beach Activities
- Boating
Have peace of mind that your keys and valuables are protected while you have fun down the beach. Never leave your valuables unattended.
Safer than Magnetic Key Holders
Being far superior to magnetic key holders, (I’m sure most of us have used these from time to time). A truck safe hitch actually deters somebody trying to locate your car key.
A thief will just move onto a more opportunistic vehicle. Magnetic key holders also sometimes may just fall off if you hit a bump on the road. Now you are up for the cost of getting a new key. Don’t forget there are not too many places to store a magnetic key box, and everyone knows where these little devices are hidden.
The HitchSafe is self-contained within the tough solid steel structure of the hitch receiver. To break into it will require a lot of thought and action. Most people won’t even know it’s there due to the rubber cover that hides it well.
If you also want to secure your Boat or Garden trailer and even Caravans from being stolen check out our review on the best trailer hitch locks.
Hitch Safe break in – Is it Possible?
All locks and safes can be broken into with some serious thought and determination. The Hitch safe has been designed to deter someone from trying to crack or tamper with the lock to gain access.
We tried to break in and crack our Trailer Hitch Safe Lock by first changing the combination and then turning the 4 pin numbers to see how long it will take to gain access. We gave up after 45 minutes. My fingers were starting to hurt.
The logic is, if there are 4 Pin numbers ranging from 0-9 there are 10,000 possible combinations. If you are taking 2 seconds to try each number it would take around 5.5 hours.
The math behind doing this for real is…
- 10,000 x 2 seconds = 20,000 seconds
- 20,000 / 60 =333.33 minutes or 5 1/2 hours to try every single combination.
What about a Hammer
A hammer and pry bar is going to do some damage. If your car is down the beach, someone is going to notice all the commotion. A few hits with a hammer will NOT open or break into this thing, you are going to need some serious time and effort to get into this tow hitch safe.
A would-be opportunistic thief is just going to move onto the next soft target. Especially if there is nothing inside your vehicle worth stealing. It’s all in your car key vault. Congratulations you just saved your windows from getting smashed in.
Longer Hitch Safe Bolts
If you have either a Toyota Tacoma or Tundra you are going to require the longer hitch retaining bolts. This is due to the rear hitch receiver being a little bit thicker on these vehicles. You will need to purchase the HS7021T with longer pins.
- Designed for Toyota Tacoma 2005 and newer
- Made for Toyota Tundra 2007 and newer
- Fits large industrial truck receivers with the, larger 2.5-inch receiver
Conclusion
I really like the HitchSafe Key Vault, we have it installed all the time on a Hayman Reese Tow hitch receiver. We only change the safe out for the regular tow ball when we take out the Jet-Ski trailer. Swapping out the key safe for the Tow ball is a tool-less exercise and only takes a few minutes.
A quick tip its to put a small layer of grease on the inside of your car receiver, this will make it easy to remove and prevent rust if water gets in.
My wife loves it as she can go for a walk or run with her friends and not have to carry her car keys. As a landscape photographer, it means she can go somewhere and only have to carry her camera.
There are a couple of other products out there which are similar but In my opinion, they don’t even come close to being so streamlined, tough, and looking great.
I am a qualified Industrial Electrician for the past 20 years and I love to share my knowledge on home repair and maintenance jobs.
I love fast toys like Motorcycles, Cars, Jetskis, Boats, and Computers so writing about them is easy. Working on them is fun.
To keeps costs down I do all my own mods, repairs, and servicing. These skills I want to share with everyone. DIY is a skill everyone can learn.
2018 Tacoma need a Hitchsafe for my truck, just need to know what parts that are needed,
Thank you,
Glenn