good hitch deal?

[we350z]

Well I want a hitch, but as many of you know there is a shortage of the $$ OEM hitches and they are on backorder because the guy who owned the company that was the sole producer of the hitches has passed away and apparently his business has died along with him.

So anyway I was at the indy mechanic's place today to have my X checked over. I asked them if they were able to locate an OEM hitch. They had called around to all the major dealerships, all of them had the part of backorder. One dealer had 10 on backorder alone.

I need a hitch before I move next March. Just so happens that a friend of my mechanics sold his X5 to a dealership as CPO and they removed his hitch - apparently they do not take aftermarket parts on CPO vehicles.

Anyway. The guy is willing to let it go for $100.00, it looks to be the kind commonly found on ebay that bolts to the stock bumper bracket (OEM does too but has reinforced bumper supposedly) and then drills into the subframe via a support bar. They said they would have to make a minor adjustment to the bottom of the plastic bumper fascia that would not be noticable but they would install it for around $225.

The wiring harness is BMW OEM. I figure this alone is prob worth more than $100.00 so I am thinking that for $325.00 installed this might be a deal I can't refuse.

I plan on towing my other car with a bunch of stuff in it which should be well below the 6000 lb capacity the hitch label says. As for the hitch it is a Class III Draw-Tite 75154:

http://www.etrailer.com/pc-DTH~75154...utm_medium=ppc

[Weasel]

This is the same hitch that is installed on my foreman's 4.4i (on it when he got it). After towing his various boats around for fishing it is now aiming at the ground at a slight but noticeable angle. Indicative the common complaint with these. He tried to sell it to me for $100 also and offered to buy my old truck for his towing needs... I of course refused.

I was considering spending a weekend in my driveway with my various saws and welder in hand to devise my own out of an old oem bumper support as a template and some 2" square tubing used for most hitches. But would have had to make the additional internal frame support used for the oem hitch... Thank god I caught a member selling his OEM hitch and don't have to attempt this.

But what it amounts to with the aftermarket hitch is tongue weight and torsion from load pull. If you can keep the tongue weight down relatively low via weight placement in the load and accelerate slow while towing to avoid odd torsional loading you should be fine for the trip. Necessity is the mother...

[we350z]

Well I would be towing a trailer with my other car on it (~3600 lbs) and the car would have whatever i can fit in it.

I don't have the need to tow boats or really anything very often. How long did it take for his hitch to point down? Did it damage his frame?

You lucky duck finding an OEM hitch - what did you end up paying if you don't mind me asking?

[Weasel]

I don't even have the hitch yet, the guy is out of town untill the 20th, and I am paying $450 + about $85 shipping which is more than I would normally pay for new at the dealer with employee cost, but since it is not available currently I am not passing it up!

And I think it took a few towing sessions before it started aiming down, but by bolting to the oem bumper support I am hoping it just twisted the bumper and not the frame ends where it mounts... don't personally know.

[TowX]

NO, I wouldn't do it. Maybe if I was towing a small 2000 lb jetski trailer, but I wouldn't tow anything more than that.

You said you'd be towing your other car, approx 3600 lbs. I'm assuming it's the ZX? By the time you rent or borrow a trailer, load the car on there, and add other stuff in the car as you stated, i'm willing to bet you'll be closer to 5,000 or 5,500 lbs. Your car alone is likely close to 3500. A rented uhaul car trailer is 1900 lbs! Or a steel car trailer with dual axles is 1500+.

I pull a really light weight aluminum car trailer (960 lbs) with a gutted 911 track car (2500), then throw spare wheels and tires on the tire rack (350 lbs), fill the box on the tongue with tools and parts (250 lbs) and my very light car and trailer tip the scales at between 4100 and 4300 lbs. and I carry 500 lbs tongue weight. I know the weights because I've put it on a set of scales to measure both tongue and total towed weight. With all the forces exerted on my hitch while travelling 500-900 miles at a time for events, and and in cornering situations, there's no way I'd trust an aftermarket hitch that relies on a bumper and some holes drilled in sheetmetal to stay together. I installed my factory hitch myself and know the engineering that went into it. As I recall- 14 bolts fasten the hitch the the strongest structure of the car.

Keep in mind that even if you load your car on the trailer and can confirm just 300-400 lbs of tongue weight, the actual peak loads on that hitch when the rear of the truck hits a dip in the road or under extreme braking will be significantly higher than the static tongue weight. I've read a study (from Da'Lan I think) that says that under certain extremes, the actual tongue weight can equal the total towed weight.

All that aside, and at the risk of sounding like I'm going against my own advice, how far do you have to tow with your move? And is this a one time deal? If the move isn't really far ( multi state) then you might get away with it. But for $485, I would think you could rent a uhaul truck and trailer and avoid the risk to your X5 altogether.

OK, I'll get off my soapbox now.

[we350z]

Thanks for chiming in. UGH don't know i was just gonna go for it because my odds of getting a OEM hitch at any price is prob slim to none. I really don't want to spend $500 + another $500 for install for a potentially one-time use. I am driving from Phoenix to San Francisco...

I didn't realize a uhaul car trailer was 1900 lbs... is that the one where the towed vehicle wheels are on the ground? Ideally i wanted a flat bed trailer for the car.

[TowX]

Has anyone checked some of the european hitch makes like Bosal or Westfalia? Audi allroad owners are in a similar situation. The allroad was discontinued and 2 years later the factory hitch was discontinued. Lots of people looking, but nobody can find one. So a number of folks have sourced their hitch from those sources. Exchange rate these days sucks, but at least it's a fully integrated design much like factory. In fact these companies often make the factory hitches.

[Weasel]

Good thinking! That is something I never thought of. Are the Euro spec X5's getting their OEM hitches from another source? And how much would international shipping be... It might be time to ask a favor of one of our friendly local European members!

[JCL]

Originally Posted by weasel56

Good thinking! That is something I never thought of. Are the Euro spec X5's getting their OEM hitches from another source? And how much would international shipping be... It might be time to ask a favor of one of our friendly local European members!

Yes, the Euro X5 hitches are from different suppliers. The downside is that the hitch design is different; the EU swan neck hitch has a 50 mm metric hitch ball (just smaller than 2") and isn't legal in North America. You could probably get away with it if you imported one, but you could never use a bike rack that fit a 2" square receiver, for example.

[Weasel]

But is only the ball different? Or is the whole receiver a different size square tube... And how different is the mounting design stregnth wise?