The Blue Ox baseplate is very strong. They do put their crossbar behind the bumper and fascia. I have had them on 4 seperate vehicles and never had any concern about the baseplate strength. The only problem I have had to date was with the one on my latest Saturn Vue. On our recent trip to Alaska, the mounting bolts loosened and two sheared off, one on each side of the plate. This allowed the whole baseplate to shift and basically destroyed the front bumper cover and headlights. The bolts had been installed with loctite red, but the design was such that you couldn't get a wrench onto the nuts to torque everything down. The nuts were called "whiz-nuts" which have a wire welded to them so you can inset them into the frame and put the bolts in from the outside. Even using an impact wrench, they never got tight enough. After we discovered the problem, we "fished" new bolts in from inside the frame, with slit lock washers and installed new nuts on the outside with the impact wrench. Unfortuantely, those worked loose twice more on the way home. I got to be an expert on removal and re-installation of the bumper cover.