What is Reddit's opinion of CURT 18145 48 x 20-Inch Basket Hitch Cargo Carrier, 500 lbs Capacity, Black Steel, 1-1/4, 2-In Adapter Shank?

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CURT Basket-Style. We really like it. It has gotten us through a lot of family vacations!

Something like this.

So I don’t know my way around these things all that well, going with a business in my area that specializes in installing hitches (especially for cars that can’t just go to the local U-Haul). According to them, there’s only one hitch that’s made for my 2017 F57 — https://torkliftcentral.com/2017-mini-cooper-s-convertible-ecohitch?v=4 — so that’s what I’m getting and having them install. It’s a 1 1/4-inch hitch, so those are rated for 300 pounds (but I believe that’s for actually towing something else, not necessarily what it can carry).

As for what I’m planning to put into the hitch receiver, I got a good deal on one of these — https://allen.bike/collections/hitch-racks/products/deluxe-hitch-rack — it’s a 2-bike rack, maximum of 70 pounds for the two bikes, so I’m sure there will be no problem there.

And then I also got a cargo rack — https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004QEKGA0/ — that’s rated at 500 lbs for the 2-inch hitch and 300 lbs for the 1 1/4-inch hitch. The cargo rack itself is quite heavy, but I can’t imagine the rack holding my Yeti cooler will get anywhere even close to approaching 300 lbs. I’m a little worried because the bar comes straight out and doesn’t curve upwards like on some other models, so I’m hoping it doesn’t end up being too close to the ground coming off the back of my Mini.

So overall, I appreciate the answers I got here, but I mostly figured it out when I got the answer from the hitch install company. It’s going to have a 300-lb. limit but nearly all applications I’m going to use it for aren’t going to get close to that limit ... so I’m feeling really good about it at this point.