I've been emailing w/ a gentleman there back and forth about shipping quotes and a discount on the price for shipping it to me. Once I get something worked out, i'll be sure to post up. I spend quite a bit of time talking to the guys at Schmeidmann, but at this point, it's still coming down to cost, and even w/ them giving me "employee" pricing, the PF Jones seller is still cheaper before any pre-negotiated discounts.

Can you post up pics for others to see?

Did you end up going this route? Sorry I've been go for so long...trips back and forth to Reno, going to Seattle next week, then Reno again, etc etc.

Does anyone know or can confrim if the swanneck hitch is only a European thing? I wonder if this is something available in say, Mexico or South America where it wouldn't be as much to ship. Cole seems to be the only person I can think of who's using this hitch and is out of the United States, but South Africa is definately further away than the two retailers from UK or Denmark are located.

Hi M5James,

I don't have pics here on my lap top so will have to send them from my office pc. Hopefully I can find time today. If I can't figure out how to post on the forum I will email them to you.
doug

Hi Guys,

Sorry I'm a bit late to this party, but I was searching about replacing my water pump and came across this thread and can hopefully help as I am in the UK and have the Westfalia kit that I installed myself.

Looking at the Install Tips for the tow hitch (this one: http://www.xoutpost.com/articles/x5/...tion-tips.html ) the Westfalia bar is identical, except that instead of having the ugly square section receiver, there is a nice socket to accept the swan-neck. The replacement bumper part is otherwise the same.

I've posted up a couple of pics before which you might be interested in, as part of a thread on UK tow bars. You can find the thread here: http://www.xoutpost.com/bmw-sav-foru...towbar-uk.html specifically my pics on the third page: http://www.xoutpost.com/bmw-sav-foru...wbar-uk-3.html

If you read through, most of us in the UK recommend the Westfalia kit combined with the plug'n'play electronics pack, both supplied by Towequipe. Their website is here: Towequipe - UK's best value towbar store -

I bought my kit through ebay and it cost me less than £250, roughly $400 at today's rates.

If you have any more questions or need more pics, just shout.

Thanks for the pics, I just finally cleaned out my email box and I found them.

Can you post an ebay link of the kit you have? I haven't clicked the link yet, but is the Towequipe harness a flat 4 like we have in the US?

http://img.alibaba.com/photo/2199996...tor_Plug_A.jpg

What about the Witter version? I'm only going to be towing maybe 800lbs max, so by no means do I need to get the most expensive version of highest weight handling capabilities.

After reading this post, I contacted this seller and after a few emails, he stated that the Westfalia bar won't fit on US Spec X5. Now after reading antonye's post, I forwarded this thread to them and told them to pay particular attention to post 66.

I still keep finding sites saying Witter is cheaper than Westfalia, and as long as it can still tow the minuscule amount of like 800lbs compared to most of these hitches that do like 4000-5000lbs.

Hello thread revival!!!

SO my buddy just reminded me that I need to start coming back out to Seattle more so we can go riding. I've done a TON of things to my bike to prepare it for the new season (tires, PC'ing the frame and wheels, 50 shot NOS and progressive controller, valve adjustment, new clutch and Barnett Springs, EBC rotors and HH pads all around, TB sync, ceramic coated header and midpipes all the way up to the slip-on mufflers, 9003/H4 bi-xenon kit...that all I can remember now :)), so I need to get off my ass and get a hitch installed on the X5. The prices of the removeable swan neck type hitch has come down, but then I read about a guy selling a hitch for his X3 for only $140 shipped! I wished we had those kids of prices, so I decided to look on ebay, and low and behold....

2006 06 BMW X5 Trailer Receiver Hitch Tow 3 III : eBay Motors (item 330396020992 end time Mar-17-10 21:15:57 PDT)

2000 01 2002 02 BMW X5 TRAILER HITCH CLASS 3 75148 : eBay Motors (item 280416200725 end time Mar-27-10 11:18:33 PDT)

Mind you, I'm only going to be towing like 600lbs (trailer and bike), not some 3000lb load, so I don't need some super high load capacity, top of the line hitch. I HIGHLY doubt that w/ the small load that I'm going to be pulling that I need to worry about anything tearing away from the reear bumper, etc so for the factory diehards, please keep an open mind because I'm not wanting to spend $500 for something I may use 2-3x a year. One is from some company I've never heard of before, the other is from Uhaul...that must mean it has a little credibility behind it, right?

As for wiring, I have a splice kit on my Chevy that has an LED indicator that confirms I have a signal for parking lights, brakes and turn singals. Other than maybe an OBC error message for resistance (unless I install LED bulbs on the trailer), what is preventing me from using the same thing on one of these hitches?

Thanks people...I haven't been on the boards in a while, I hope everyone has been good.