Hopkins Towing Solutions 47185 Multi-Tow 4 Flat to 7 Blade and 4 Flat Adapter

I added this to an old Ford Explorer that only had a factory flat-4 trailer wiring harness. Now I have the option of towing a trailer with the RV style 7-pin or an old school flat-4 plug in it. The flat-4 portion plugs directly into the existing flat-4 wiring on the vehicle so you dont have to cut anything off of the vehicle. The only thing you have to wire in is 12V auxiliary power and back-up lights, but only if you need them. Since my trailer does not use either of those options I just taped those wires up and left them there in case I want to wire them in later. It also comes with a mounting bracket and screws so mounting it is a piece of cake. I only had to drill two holes to mount the bracket. I would definitely buy again.

Labeled like new, but was obviously broken.

I was happy with the results. The bracket was okay but not perfect. The production engineers need to study the bracket install position. it was not low enough for ideal placement. I had to fabricate an extension for the wiring setup to work in front of the hitch receiver. Overall it was okay.

It was what it was described to be

I like this product!

Ironically, the 4-pin plug on this which is made to go into the vehicles 4-pin plug had rubber shielding around the metal terminals to create a seal. I installed this on an 03 F150 which also had said shielding. The two wont work together, only one end is to have this shielding or boot. But fear not as the fix is easy: I just took a utility knife and cut the rubber off the plug on this Hopkins unit. It then plugged into the truck fine. Otherwise, these are not of the most robust construction. Hopkins also sells a more heavy duty adapter under the Endurance line which is of better construction. Ive used both and will opt for the Endurance in the future. The Endurance is gray in color and has a raised X on the 7-pin cover.

If you need a 7 wire and 4 wire all in one, this will do the job. Been working fine in saltwater environment.

We planned to use this on our 2013 Ford Escape (Titanium) with factory towing, but ended up using it on a 1997 Ford Explorer XLT instead (not due to the item itself, but due to the towing capacity of the Escape). The wires are completely sealed with some sort of epoxy where they go into the adapter itself. My only issue here is that the bolts provided for mounting the bracket to the vehicle may not be long enough for several applications. In our case, they were barely long enough to go through the bumper we drilled through on the 97 Explorer. The adapter performed as expected however, and survived a 2500 mile trip without any issues, and we expect it to last a long time to come.

The 4 way plug was a nice feature. I didnt need to splice that connector in. I just used my existing trailer plug. I did have to make a new ground on the truck side, probably to handle the extra load from the trailer brakes and the aux power to the trailer. The mounting bracket seems a little flimsy. But it works. Use two hands to connect and disconnect and you should be fine. I like not having to use a 7 way to a 4 way adapter for my different trailers.

This is a solid adapter that will add a 7 round to your 4 flat plug. It takes a minimum of wiring, and the instructions are adequate, though I had to make use of some online resources. The materials are tough, and I am not afraid this will break at some point. The only reason that I subtracted stars was because the assembly of the adapter was not so great. The center screw on the front of the plug that holds the center wire in was practically falling out. It wasnt that noticeable, and so I spent a good deal of time trying to figure out why not all of my connections were being made.