Next Trailer Hitch Question- Brakes
 

OK, there have been several good postings about hitches and towing with the X5. The question about OEM vs aftermarket remains open to dicussion (and personal opinion).

I read that many of you towed a boat or trailer of xxxx pounds. this is great. Did any of you have trailers with brakes? Did you install the brake controller?
If so- tell us how you did that- since that is the larger techinical problem.
I have read the 2 articles on the subject and still feel the aproaces are a little, too technical (e.g. building a switch on the break pedal)

My stealer says he will install the wiring for a brake controller, but he does not know how much it will cost, nor how long. He says the real problem is running the wires front to back and side to side for the controller.

Do you guys with heavy loads assume the BMW brakes are adequate by themselves?

I can do the hitch, easy enough, but my tandem axle enclosed motorcycle trailer has breakes and I think I need them.
Thoughts? Comments? all welcome!

According to the literature supplied with the factory hitch, the limit for towing a trailer without brakes is 1600lbs and trailers with brakes up to 6000lbs. I would not exceed the 1600lb limit, too much stress on the vehicle brakes.

My brother's boat trailer has hydraulic brakes that are mechanically activated. The thing has a master cylinder in the coupler that applies the trailer brakes when it gets squeezed between the trailer and vehicle during braking.

Dennis

I understand the type of trailer brakes you describe.

Many larger brakes have electronic brakes, with an adjustable variable load controller. I previously towed with a Lincoln NAvigator. Nice car, traded it for the X5- better car- except for the towing part.

anyone have electronic brake controller installed?

Did you look at this?

http://www.bmwmotorsports.org/pdf/BM...er%20Brake.pdf

http://www.bmwmotorsports.org/pdf/X5...stallation.pdf

Hope it helps. GL. :thumbup:

Yes, those are the articles to which I refeerd in the original post. I was looking for newer information, since both of these seem overly complex.

Any time I have towed a significant weight, ie 3500 lb, it has been with a trailer with surge brakes (the ones with the master cylinder on the trailer coupler).

If I was going to use an electric brake controller, I would follow the instructions on the second of the two links shown. It seems that picking up the signal from the LCM (the one going to the third brake light) would be pretty straightforward compared to building a bracket for an additional switch on the brake pedal - that just introduces another potential failure point.

The bigger question to me is where to mount the controller, given that it will be visible. The ashtray idea sounds reasonable.

Good luck with it.

I've pulled a 31 foot 8,300 pound GVWR Airstream travel trailer for over 23,000 miles using a "Warner" foot brake controller. It taps 12 volts off of the firewall positive jumper bolt and the wire goes immediately to an automatically resetting breaker switch. It then follows a wiring harness through the firewall to the brake pedal where the controller mounts, then from the controller it goes along the rocker to the rear where it is spliced into the 7 pin connector wire harness. The brake controller wiring DOES NOT interface with any of the X5’s electronics.

It only adds about 1 inch to the top of the brake pedal which I readily acclimated to. MOST IMPORTANTLY, if the controller is mounted with it's hinge at the bottom of the brake pedal it can be "toed" at the top to apply the trailer brakes independently of the tow vehicle brakes. I ALWAYS "toe" the trailer brakes first so as to be in the habit to "straighten" the assembly in the event of a control problem AND to minimize tow vehicle brake wear. I currently have over 64,000 miles on my 2001 X5 and my original brake pads are only about 1/3 worn.

In the event of an emergency stop all I have to do is hit the brake pedal and the whole assembly’s brakes are applied to the max.

I’ve made numerous posts on my set-up and towing, most on the http://bimmer.roadfly.com/bmw/forums/e53/ website where you can do a search on “withidl” to find them.

Brake controller? I googled all over for info on it, and nada, zip. If you have a link or other info, please point ust at it.

Is it an Airstream thinghy?

Warner Automatic Brake Foot Controller No. 1100-28
 

No, its not "an Airstream thinghy".

The following link should get you to the Warner Electric "PDF Download - Maintenance / Installation Data" web page: http://warnerelectric.com/pdf_frame....stallation.asp
If you do a search (Ctrl F) on "Controller" you will be moved to line item "Automatic Brake Foot Controller No. 1100-28". Double click on the item and the installation PDF will load, or you can click on the following PDF address to load it directly: http://warnerelectric.com/pdf/819-0129_P-1386.pdf

:rofl:

Good one