Mounting Oscar's Mobile Hideout Trash Storage Bag in a Pinch

No matter what your platform is for vehicle-based travel, the Oscar’s Mobile Hideout bag is an excellent way to pack out your trash and recycle until you can put it into a trash dumpster somewhere.  It keeps all the stinky stuff outside of your rig, as opposed to having it off-gassing inside, forcing you to live in the nasty stench of your garbage and food waste.

We have received a few emails recently from folks in our van-life community about mounting an Oscar’s Mobile Hideout bag to a spare tire that has no space behind, for example a Jeep, Ineos Grenadier, or an Adventure Van.  While this is a different application than mounting it to a tire swingout, it is still possible, and not as difficult as one might think.  We had an opportunity to meet up with one of our van-life customers who has an Owl Vans Sprinter Ladder and Tire Carrier on his van.  The spare tire mounts snugly to this rack with very little clearance behind, but we were still able to mount the Oscar easily.  Here is what we did in a simple written tutorial you can follow, as well as a video tutorial we recorded during the install.

**Mounting Oscar in a Pinch **

1.      Remove the tension strap from the back of your Oscar.

This is the horizontal strap that goes between the two main vertical straps.  It is much like a chest strap on a backpack.

2.      Loosen the spare tire as much as you can, keeping it securely mounted, without removing the tire. 

3.      Hold the bag at the front of your spare tire, in the same way it will sit when it is mounted.  Attach the anti-sag strap to the back of the wheel or the back of the rack by threading one end around a wheel spoke, or thread it around the rack and reattach the buckle at the top of the tire.  Tighten the strap enough to where the top of the Oscar bag is sitting at about the same height as the top of your tire.  This will help to hold the bag in place while you get the bag secured.  It will also keep your bag from sagging when loaded.

4.      While the Oscar is hanging from the anti-sag strap, flip the bag over on the front of the tire so that you see the back of the bag and the front is facing the front of the tire. Adjust the straps so that when the bag is mounted, the buckles will rest on the bottom of the tire.  To do this, release the buckles of the main vertical straps and lengthen the top half of the straps fully, pushing the attached tri-glide to the top of the strap mounting point on the bag. The top strap will be a single layer of webbing. Locate the buckle about twelve inches in from the end of the strap and thread the end through the moveable tri-glide. 

Additionally, if your Oscar straps did not come with a second tri-glide on the upper straps, please email us at heythere@stodgear.com and we will gladly send them to you.

5.      Take the bottom half of each strap and tighten it up to where the buckle is approximately four inches or so from the bottom mounting point on the bag and there is a large excess of additional webbing.  Once you have finished fitting the bag, this additional webbing can be cut with a scissor and burnt with a lighter to seal the end. (We recommend removing the Oscar from the tire before doing this to allow for a better cut and avoid damage from the flame.)

6.      Flip the bag back over so that the back of the bag is on the front of the tire, ensuring that the anti-sag strap is flat and not twisted.  Fold the tail end of the anti-sag strap webbing into a flat roll and place it in the elastic webbing keeper to keep it from flapping around.

7.      Center the bag on the tire. Pull the upper straps out from behind the bag one at a time and cross each strap behind the back of the tire, toward the opposite side of the bag, also going behind the tire rack and connect the buckle to the bottom strap on the opposite side of the bag, making an “X” with the straps behind the tire.  Then tighten the top strap so that it is snug, using the tri-glide to hold the strap end and create some added tension.

8.      Reach in behind the Oscar bag to the front of the tire and re-tighten the tire to the rack, ensuring that it is firmly in place.

There you have it.  The instructions are simple, yet it creates a bit of a challenge to figure out when your tire is so tightly mounted to your vehicle.  The biggest thing is to loosen the tire enough that you can get the straps behind it.  Then moving the buckles and straps so that the buckles join together at the bottom of the tire, versus at the back, makes having access to the back of the tire unnecessary.

We hope that this is super helpful to those of you that want to enjoy the benefits of using the Oscar’s Mobile Hideout on your vehicle-based adventures.  We hope that it serves you well for many years to come! 

Thank you for entrusting us to assist you with your packing needs by providing you with high quality, well-thought-out bags that are made right here in the good old USA.

See you on the trail!

David and Nikki

The Oscar's Mobile Hideout spare tire trash bag is still built in Vancouver, Washington by the Last US Bag Company.  We at STōD Gear Company®are honored to be the exclusive distributor of the highly acclaimed Oscar's Mobile Hideout bag.