Trailer Hitch - Ball Mount Rattle
 

Greetings Xoutpost. Long time lurker, first time poster here.

I have tried 5 different ball mounts (aka draw bars) in the receiver of my '05 X5 each and every everyone of has fit loosely. By loosely I mean there is probably 1 - 1.5 mm of vertical play.

This video @ hitchshim.com show's what I'm talking about. It looks like they have a solution but offer no way to buy it nor have they answered their phone.

The banging of the hitch when pulling a load is really starting to drive me nuts.

While researching this problem I found a very informative thread here in the E53 forum: New OEM Hitch Specs R a "Gotcha"!

In this thread I learned that there is an BMW Oem ball mount p/n 72-11-0-009-120. I also see that the hitch specs require a minimum of a 4" drop. That's something else I will have to address.

Here are my questions: Am I the only one out here who has a loosely speced Westfalia receiver? Or do they all have this much play?

Does anyone know if the Oem ball mount fits better then any of the aftermarket 2" mounts from Reese, Uhaul, etc..?

If so I can kill two birds with one stone if I obtain the factory piece.

If not I'll just try to shim the one I have and rock on.

Thanks in advance.

I've towed a race car trailer all over the midwest and east coast with my X5 and factory hitch (but from the original batch, not this new reincarnated batch) and have absolutely no noise when towing. Sure the ball mount can rattle when empty but so does my Explorer, and so did my Tahoe, Suburban, 3/4 ton pickup, Pathfinder.

I suspect one of two things is the problem:
1) you have insufficient tongue weight. If you had 7-8% of the total weight on the tongue, a 4500 lb trailer like mine should put 400 lbs of load on the ball and I can't see how it could rattle with that much weight. FWIW, I'm carrying closer to 650 lbs on the tongue when the trailer is loaded and the air suspension handles it great.

2) the new version of the hitch is different from the old. The original was made in the states (SC I think) and was designed for a 2" dropout. All my ballmounts from the old SUV's work exactly as they did on the American trucks. But if the new one is coming from Westfalia in Europe, that could be the issue. Their dropout designs are metric. And here we use 2 5/16" balls for most heavier trailers, Europe uses a 50mm (just under 2"). So perhaps their ballmount isn't 2" but is a close metric equivalent. Just a guess but based on my experience with a Westfalia hitch from Europe for my old Audi allroad that wouldn't work without modifications to take a 2" ballmount here in the states.

If you're concerned about noise and your problem isn't a lack of tongue weight, you could try to wrap a layer of duct tape around the tube of the ballmount. It won't last forever but might feel better for the occasional tow. But I can tow 900 miles in a day, 4500 lb trailer weight, and the hitch may rattle 2 or 3 times and that's it. And generally on an extreme bump in the road.

I have never had a rattle whatsoever. Reese.

BMW drawbar (purchased in 2003). BMW hitch inserted in the 2" receiver, as noted in posts referenced above. No rattles.

I towed for the first time today, but it was just super light utility trailer. I needed to move some large BBQ's, so I borrowed my buddy's trailer. I got some ball rattle - more than I am used to in various trucks and SUV's I have owned over the years. But I am used to towing a 5Klb race car trailer, which is an entirely different matter than a small 500-ish lb open utility trailer. the thing is so light unloaded that it really bounced around way more than even my unloaded car trailer - which is bad enough. So anyway - I attribute the rattle that I heard to an extremely light trailer. I happened to have a 5" drop mount around, so I used that. Almost seems like it could have used a 8" drop. I have a set-up in a weight distributing hitch that can accommodate that. But I wasn't gonna haul that chunk of back-breaking iron out of the garage to tow around a little open utility trailer. Coulda towed that thing with my wife's Mazda wagon!!

Anyway - I have a BMW hitch on mine. Not sure when it was installed. The ball mount I used was a Reese I believe. Seemed to fit about the same as most I have used in other vehicles - nothing different that I noticed anyway.