Bike Rack Problem- Before & After Photos

When looking at the hitch on the back of my 173T, it says only 25 lbs to be inserted.  I may have someone try to reinforce mine, just in case I need to use it. 

Ratdog wrote: Are you talking about the receiver where the spare tire mounts? How much does the spare tire and its mounting post weigh? Less than 25 pounds?   -- Steve

On the "T" models, the receiver is not used for the Spare Tire.  Our Spare tire is on the platform that gets folded down to make the bed of the Tent end.

I do not know why they did not make this stronger.

I will double check mine.  I may have missed the "0".  I am hoping that I did.  I thought 25 seemed awfully low.

It has been raining non-stop since Saturday and I have my tent end down, so I need it to dry out a little before I go outside and check.

I emailed FR last year to confirm weight in back, and they also said 250, but not for towing anything.

Update -

We called Couch's and they said they would look into it.

They got back to us quickly and said Forest River would not fix the problem because we used a different bike rack in the welded on adapter than theirs.  Forest River told Couch's that the only way they would take care of problems with bike rack issues is if the R-Pod owner bought their bike rack from them.  Couch's told us they had never said that before. 

We were never told that we needed to use their bike rack. Also, the tag near the adapter clearly says that it will support 250 pounds.  So, we weighed the bikes we were carrying plus the bike rack that we already had and it came to 101 pounds total, well within the capacity. 

Couch's continued to pursue the issue on our behalf with Forest River.  After many phone calls, emails, and photos sent Forest River gave us the name and number of their supplier that made and welded on the adapter to the rear end of our R-Pod.

As soon as we sent pictures to the supplier they quickly got back to us that they would cover the damage to our bikes and pay for re-welding the adapter to our R-Pod.  The bike damage only came to 85 dollars.  However, we contacted a welding shop and they said the only way they would fix the problem is if they were allowed to weld in support brackets and the total cost to fix the bike rack adapter problem would be between 250 and 300 dollars.  We are still waiting to hear from the Forest River supplier as to whether or not they will accept that bill.