We recently got our slider hitch installed, but I found out later that our installer gave me the wrong instructions about use when we went to pick it up. (Basically, he didn't mention about putting the landing gear down to take off some of the hitch weight when transfering to/from the manuver position). He also neglected to keep the paperwork/manuals that came with the hitch, so I didn't have those either.
Fortunately, one of the things we had on the list to try out after PDI in the dealer parking lot before we headed out on our shakedown run was to excercise the slider. Short story is that we attempted the hitch installers method twice with really bad/scary/banging results. I knew that couldn't be right so when we got home, I downloaded the manufacturers instruction guide from the web. Once I followed their proceedure, everything worked smooth and easy (duh, huh?
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In our case, it was a Reese 15k slider hitch. Anyhow, to answer your question, I would strongly recommend making sure you read and understand the hitch manufacturers instructions and follow those over any others.
Oh, and it turns out we've never really needed to put it in the manuver position (yet), but it's good to know how to do it right.
Best of luck!
Steve W>