I waited over a year for this bad-boy to be restocked� So glad I did. This thing is a super smooth operator! My current bike rack didn�t have enough tilt to free up my rear hatch window from opening. With the Kuat Pivot V2 it swings WAY out of the way, and effortlessly supports my 4 bike hanger style rack. Plus� I can now use my cargo deck in the hitch receiver without getting mentally taxed on what to pack where. I can just throw stuff in the back, load up the cargo deck, and have free access to it all! Works great!
Overall, the Pivot has been really solid and pleasant to use. The toggle clamp did come loose yesterday (probably while driving over bumps), which was very disconcerting, but the safety lever did its job to prevent a catastrophe. The manual doesn't describe how tight the top toggle clamp bolts should be adjusted, so some trial and error may be needed.
My biggest concern is the real-world impact to the effective tongue weight rating on the hitch. The pivot adds significant weight and length to the rack. That length is going to add a lot of stress to the tongue weight the hitch "sees", regardless of the "250 lb" rating of the pivot itself. Kuat doesn't tell us what to expect in terms of tongue weight impact - it just has a very unhelpful warning not to exceed your tongue weight rating. Another website claims it cuts your effective tongue weight rating in half, but is that accurate? If so, the Pivot may not be a good fit for eMTBs. Something to think about.
It is very easy to operate, with one hand you can move it away, it is robust and safe to move the rack with the bikes to allow full access to the trunk. It has a nice lock to secure it when closed and also when it is open so it does not swing.
I use this on both a Ford Bronco and BMW X5. The rack is super stable which is comforting as you're running down bumpy forest service roads. Without the Pivot: the bronco: there was absolutely no way to open the tailgate with bikes on the rack. the X5, you could conceivably get the upper door open with bikes on the rack if you leaned one over a bit.
With the Pivot, you just swing everything to the side and you can open the tailgates fully.
I got the driver's side swing because if you look at a lot of the rooftop tents, they have the ladder setup to come down the passenger side so I didn't want the bikes running into the tent ladder.
The design and build quality of this product is top notch. If you're shopping for a hitch swing, really you're looking to make your life easier and not have to fiddle with things. This product accomplishes that. I can easily unlock and maneuver a heavy load with one hand. The design is such that when it's in the locked position, it is solid. The two faces of the arms come together and are locked against each other in compression, effectively rendering it as one solid connection. There is barely any stress on the arms when it's locked. When it's unlocked and extended (and at it's most susceptible to leverage), the oversized hinge leaves no doubt that you'll be able to move things back smoothly.
If I really want to split hairs, two minor notes:
-The end that fits into your hitch receiver, the hole for the hitch pin is in a fixed place. If your hitch receiver has a fixed hole as well, you are limited in adjustment for "penetration" depth. This is as opposed to some designs that use a slot instead of a hole to allow for adjustability.
-I have this on a Ram Promaster which is quite wide. An option for a longer version of this could be nice to clear more of the vehicle -- when my bikes are on the rack, they hit my van before I'm able to use the full 120 deg extension.
My Kuat rack (3 bikes) is on and off the car at least once a week as I don't like driving around the city with it on. In addition to the cargo area access issues, my Kuat rack adds that small degree of anxiety around town (e.g. for fear someone will clip the 'black and sticking out' rack, or because it impedes the backup camera view). The Pivot solves the cargo area access issue, but makes all the rest much worse ... as it results in the rack sticking out an additional couple of feet and makes installing/removing the rack extra involved/painful. If you're leaving your rack on the car all the time, and don't care about how far it sticks out behind you (perhaps you don't have to deal with city driving/parking) ... I can see the Pivot being good. But for me the added benefit of the pivot is by far killed by the extra hassle it creates. Plan to get rid of it...
I put the Kuat Pivot on the back of my home-built Transit van "RV." It supports a Kuat rack that now swings out of the way nicely when we want to use the rear doors. It was expensive, but really solves our problem in an elegant way.
I recently picked this up and truly wish i would have done so sooner. I have my 3 bike 1up rack attached to the Pivot v2 and it makes life so much easier in terms moving the bikes out of the way to access the rear hatch.
