I wouldn't expect the hitch receiver itself to fail, but have you inspected the seams in the unibody? That is where the damage has been seen. First sign is often water ingress.

If it works for you, great. Based on the failures that were documented years back, I would personally only use the OE hitch, even more so with load carriers or larger trailer loads.

My Reese Towpower hitch does not look like this one:
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a39...reese44178.jpg

It doesn't have that L shaped extension bracket on the bottom.

So can the X5 tow a 1990 mitsu eclipse on a wheel dolly (only the 2 front wheels off the ground) without any problem???

Thanks.

I wouldn't do so. Your call.

Something else to think about: the Eclipse weighs somewhere just under 3000 lbs. Add 500 to 800 lbs for the dolly. Do you have functioning trailer brakes on the dolly? If not, you are over double the X5 tow rating limit for unbraked trailers (1600 lbs). And that rating is for an OE hitch that has reinforced attachment points (which the Reese hitch does not, it just bolts to the unibody). Every time you accelerate or brake the load will be passed to the unibody through that hitch receiver.

good to know, thanks. never used a hitch or trailer in my life, lol...

If anyone is selling their OEM hitch, Im interested.

As JCL said, towing is more than just what the towed load weighs. There's tongue weight, trailer brakes, how integral the hitch is with the chassis, engine and trans cooling etc.

I've probably put 25,000 miles on my X5 towing my race car. When I was pulling my open ultralight aluminum trailer, the 4.4 V8 worked OK, and the X5 stability was fine. Heck I used to pull with at 75 for hours at a time. 4200 lbs, and I'd still get 11.5 mpg at 72-75 on the highway.

Now with my new enclosed trailer I'm pulling 5500 lbs (weighed on truckstop scale) and the X5 is marginal at best. On level ground with the trans kept in 5th, at 68-70 I'm getting 9.5-10 mpg, but any grade is a struggle. And that's with the 4.4. I couldn't even imagine trying to tow 5000 lbs with the 6 cylinder. And if I leave the trans in D or S, it hunts from 3rd to 4th to 5th constantly which would kill the trans with heat. But that's secondary. The big issue is that the 112" wheelbase of the E53 is just way too short and the trailer will move the X5 around in crosswinds. And yes I'm using a good weight distributing hitch and sway control.

So even though the X5 and factory hitch are rated at 6,000 lbs, there's no way in heck I'd even attempt to pull that much weight more than maybe 50 miles to my nearest track. I won't even tow my current 5500 lb combination out east 900 miles through the mountains to VIR like I used to do with my open trailer. I think an 1800 mile round trip tow would kill the trans, and it would be white knuckle the entire time in the VA and WV mountains on the interstates.

My original thought was to get rid of the X5 and find a nice one or two year old Yukon Denali, but after borrowing a friend's 2500 GMC with the Duramax turbodiesel (700 lb ft of torque), my new plan is to sell my 528, pick up a Duramax GMC and keep the X5 as a backup tow vehicle and new daily driver.

Too bad nobody makes an SUV with a turbodiesel that's got a reasonable tow rating. The E70 turbodiesel is still just 6000, and the Audi Q7 TDi is 6600. And no US manufacturer offers a diesel in an SUV. Why?

North American sport utilities (even the large ones) are generally built on what we all used to call a half ton pickup chassis (F150/C1500/etc). Diesels are offered in the HD pickups (F350/C3500/etc) and some HD F250/C2500 models. So the real question is why don't they put diesels in light duty pickups. Probably because fuel is too cheap, and light duty pickups compete at a certain price point.

Suburban diesels were available way back in the early '90s, on a previous generation platform. They didn't have much of a tow rating anyway. Ford built the Excursion (the real one, not the Expedition XL replacement version) on an HD platform, with the 7.3 diesel. It towed around 10,000 or 11,000 lbs. Huge turning circle, ridiculous size and weight. 2wd or 4wd. Lots of room in the 3rd row. Very much a truck. So they didn't sell many, and the replacement was a stretched Expedition built on a half ton pickup chassis, with no diesel option. I had two Expeditions, and drove an Excursion, but didn't want one. You could always find a used one I suppose, not sure when production stopped. But I would look to a newer diesel pickup, a Ford in my case.

Quite true. But I think GM destroyed the diesel market for this country with the crappy V8 gas engine they converted to diesel. I had a Chevy 1500, what they called a heavy duty half ton, new back in '86 with the 6.5L diesel engine, not a turbo. Horrible acceleration, fuel economy barely better than a gas engine, and nothing was reliable on it. Head gaskets every 25000 or so, injector pumps that went bad annually etc.

Fast forward to new 2011 trucks. The GM HD2500's and the Ford Super Duty F250's are quiet, luxurious, and have massive power. The latest ford Powerstroke 6.7L is 400 hp and 800 lb-ft.

I can't afford one of those at $70K, so looking at 3-4 year old trucks.

Excursion was only available for 2 years with the well respected 7.3 Powerstroke (a Navistar engine), then in '03 with the 6.0 Ford built Powerstroke that was far slower and had lots of problems. So to get into a 6.4 Powerstroke it's '08 or newer.

Chevy made the Suburban with various diesels 2000, and that's too old for me. Their Duramax engines from '05 and especially '06 (forged con rods) have proven to be very reliable as long as you ran good fuel and changed the fuel filter regularly. Otherwise it's a $1500 repair to rpelace injectors. And they're backed by the Allison 6 speed auto too.

I'd prefer a Ford but having to look at an '08 or newer makes it $15-20K more than an '06 GMC 2500HD. And this is just a tow vehicle, not something I'm going to drive on a daily basis or on family trips.

Jeep tried a small V6 TD in the Grand Cherokee back in '03 or '04, but it was something like 190 hp and 250 lb-ft, not even the same specs as their 6 cyl gas. And supposedly it was a $50K Jeep back then which turned buyers off. V8 Grand Cherokees were $40K and had more power. The $10K savings paid for a lot of gasoline.

VW had the killer V10 TDi in the Touareg from '04 to '06 or '07. They ended up with $10K rebates because nobody wanted a $75K VW. But that engine made something like 550 lb-ft of torque, and had a 7700 tow rating. The challenge is finding one that doesn't have a million miles on it, and it's still the same wheelbase as an E53. Now if they had put that engine in the Q7.... but that would be dreaming. And like the E53, it's still a unibody construction, and 7700 lbs of towed weight is putting a lot of stress on those sheet metal welds.

So GM failed at making a proper diesel SUV and blamed it on the consumer. Chrysler tried with a crappy engine in an overpriced Jeep and blamed the consumer. VW tried, again with a way overpriced SUV and blamed the market.

Interestingly, Navistar was supposedly developing a new V6 TDi for Ford back 10 years ago. On the order of a 3.5L V6 turbodiesel that would have made 250 hp and more than 400 lb-ft torque, to go in the F150 and the Expedition. Would have been a 25+ mpg Expedition that could also tow a trailer well. But when Ford pulled the big diesel Powerstroke production in-house to make the 6.0 they eventually released, Navistar stopped development.

And I agree that most current turbodiesels are based on 3/4 ton trucks. With big torque you need huge axles, beefy transmission, and hefty frames. The current crop of SUVs (Tahoe, Expedition, Suburban) couldn't handle the latest torque-monster engines. What a shame there isn't a clean slate design. So sadly, it's a 3/4 ton truck or struggle with gas engines more.

just purchased a Curt 13070
 

I am installing the Curt 13070 on my 2002 X5 4.4i and it looks like there should be a bend in the cross piece from the two bumper brackets. The flanges don't come close to sitting flat on the trucks frame.

Please see pictures below. any ideas?

http://i690.photobucket.com/albums/v...5/IMG_5124.jpg

http://i690.photobucket.com/albums/v...5/IMG_5135.jpg

http://i690.photobucket.com/albums/v...5/IMG_5132.jpg

http://i690.photobucket.com/albums/v...5/IMG_5133.jpg

Here's what you get when you buy a factory hitch. These were all the parts laid out on my kitchen floor before installation. The receiver itself is definitely bowed in the middle, but beyond that there are far more parts for adjustability and security.

The first thing that comes to mind is the phrase "you get what you pay for" but that probably isn't too helpfull at this point. So here are some ideas:

1) Are you sure that is the right model hitch? There may be year over year variations due to the mid-life refresh of the X5 in 2004. I wouldn't expect the chassis to change, but there may be other components in the way. Worth asking Curt.

2) On the OE hitch, there are plates attached where the bumper struts used to be. You call it the frame, but it is just the unibody. The plates shift the hitch mounting surface rearward slightly, in addition to providing significant reinforcement to the sheet metal. Those plates would create additional interference clearance. Are there any parts like that with the Curt hitch? If not, and no reference in the instructions, don't worry about it, I have only seen them on the OE hitch.

3) The hitch was assembled on a jig by a welder. If he was having a bad day, or the jig wasn't straight, the hitch won't be straight. In that case you would have to return it and see if others in stock are the same or not.

4) Looking at the photo in the first post in this thread, the crossbar looks fairly straight. It is mounted with an offset and a drop from the mounting plates, and if that dimension was wrong (ie the jig was out) then it would likely interfere.

Good luck.

Jeff