Towing Exp.
 

Just thought i would add/share my towing experience with my 4.8is. Did a ton of research and found this toy hauler a couple months back and figured it was right where the x5 was semi comfortable. But a picture is worth a thousand words. Here is a breakdown of the setup for all those people looking for towing info in one place.

04' 4.8is @ 51000 miles

50lbs of air in the rear tires 40 in the front

Equalizer brand weight distribution hitch with sway control. approx 550lbs before the distrubition on the reciever.

Prodigy wireless brake controller

Steady 10.6 - 11.8 mpg @ 60-68mph mostly flat terrain from Wyoming to Indiana 1300miles in 2 days

Hauler=2011 Rubicon
Dry weight of 5376lbs
With Bike and gear 62-6300lbs

The x5 had plenty of power and never needed 3rd gear the whole trip, the torque of this motor is great. I manually managed the tranny and was in 5th gear most of the time. The weight was never really an issue but the wind drag of the trailer wouldnt allow me to run in 6th, i experimented a couple times and in order to get enough torque and or RPMs in 6th i was travelling alot faster than i wanted to pulling this trailer 75-80. Overall the x5 is a great tow rig for anything less than 7000lbs and or slightly over if the aerodynamics of the trailer being towed are good. If your worried about its towing abilities just set it up right and dont drive like an idiot and you should be just fine.

ben, great info and write up. thanks.

I bet you got some funny looks from all the other RV'ers in their 3/4ton pickups, eh?

What roof rack do you have on the X? I am thinking about getting a roof rack with attachments for bikes.

Good write-up, thanks for posting.

Looking at the trailer, the axles look to be set way back. Are you able to load the bike so that it is centred on the axles, and thus not impact weight distribution much? The toy haulers I have seen have dedicated garages behind the living quarters, and those would be brutal for changes in loaded/unloaded weight distribution.

Other question is on tire pressures. The X5 was designed for 32 psi front and 39 psi rear with a full load (which you have). Why so high?

Have fun with it!

I have the thule rapid load bars i think is what they are called along with the wind screen attachment on the front. They are strung across the factory rails and seem to do great, no loss in fuel economy. I only have loaded snowboards so far, havent tried the bike yet.

As far as the hauler goes the axles are slightly behind a regular camper but not much. Toy haulers generally have a higher dry tongue weight so that once the toys are loaded it balances everything out using the axles as a fulcrum to a certain extent. My triumph only weighs about 470lbs full of fuel and the tie downs center its mass right over the rear tire of the tandem axle. I hadnt really played around with it much but the fuel station tank is on the very rear of the trailer under the beaver tail loading area. And thats 30 gallons of fuel i can use as a counter weight to help with the tongue weight if it gets to heavy up front. The dry weight of this haulers tongue was 660lbs and with my bike and a half a tank on the rear I figured i was about right and it towed great except for the wind drag.

I ran the tire pressure a little higher incase the load on the rear tires got to high and at lower pressures thats what creates heat and blow outs. Slightly higher all around to also help with rolling resistance for fuel economy. Back down to normal now though.

Thanks for sharing info. I have the BMW hitch mounted but not used yet. I remember somewhere instructions said not to use load equalizer on X with self leveling rear suspension. If you have leveling why what was your thinking on equalizer? Also, I have no experience with the wireless brakes; your impressions? Thanks again.:thumbup:

The equalizer is the brand of setup I have. I set it up to not really to put much on the hitch. More so just enough to give pressure for sway. It is also a sway controller and that's 90 percent of the reason I used it. Having never towed with the x5 I was unsure of how it would handle the sway so I used it and am 100% glad I did. Towing with the x5 without sway control on ur trailer at highway speeds with big rigs and wind is pure crazy IMHO. The prodigy wireless controller worked great once I Put resistors on the LED taillights I have on the trailer. Without incandescent bulbs or a resistor in parallel to the lights the x5 stops sending power to the trailer brake light after initial glow, which is the signal that turns the brake contoller on. It worked fine on manual but wanted the full effect. Something is up with the light module that controls the trailer lights, it doesn't like LED. But there is a work around. The extra coin for the controller was well worth it, I didnt want to hack into that wiring not knowing what to expect. And I didn't have to mount that ugly thing under my dash. The hand held controller hung out in my cup holder.

Great job on this. Much more than I would want to attempt to pull behind my X. The wiring job for the prodigy wasn't really that bad using all the great writeups on this site. I had no issue installing my OEM hitch either. Have fun pulling that rig.

I don't care what the BMW manual says, for a rig that size - you need a wt. dist. hitch period!!

After several years of cross country towing with my X5 (and probably 75,000 miles of towing race car trailers over the past 20 years), a few of my thoughts for you....

Keep an eye on your trans fluid, and change it frequently. When my trans died at 75k miles, the "lifetime" fluid that came out was just plain fried. If I planned on keeping my X5 (with my new enclosed race car hauler I just can't see long distance towing with the X5 so working on buying a Yukon Denali or Infiniti QX56) I would absolutely change trans fluid annually. The V8 will no doubt pull a big trailer pretty well, but the trans will need all the cooling and lube help it can get. It's a weak link even without the added heat of towing.

Be very careful with the towed weight. You mentioned you towed to Indiana. If you were pulled over in Indiana and your trailer weight did in fact exceed the tow rating of the X5, you would have been given an expensive ticket, and perhaps even forced to park the trailer or reduce the weight before being allowed to continue. Many other states have similar laws. Some people believe there's a variance offered, like 5%, but from the Indiana state troopers I've talked with, that's just an old internet rumor.

Using a weight distributing hitch is a very smart way to go with that weight trailer. One tip for you, shared with me by a BMW dealer shop foreman who also towed with an X5- Hitch up your trailer with the engine turned off and key out of the ignition so the pump for the rear airbags is not operating. Drop the trailer onto the ball, get your spring arms into place and only then should you turn on the X5. This way you get the X5 and trailer properly leveled and the airbags just have to keep it all level. Otherwise the airbags will pump up to take all the weight of the tongue weight and the spring bars be improperly tensioned. I've done this for 3 years and it makes a big difference in the stability of the tow vehicle and trailer, especially in cross winds. And this is also the way most US SUV's with self leveling suspensions are supposed to be loaded too, so it's not anything unique to the X5.

Do NOT exceed the max tire pressure on the rear tires. With the heat of driving I bet your rear tires ended up at 55-60 psi after a half hour of driving. Not what any passenger car/ SUV tire was designed for. I've towed 1,000 miles in a day with the rear 19" tires at 40 psi and never had even a hint of instability, and I got close to 40,000 miles out of the Michelin Diamaris tires.

I know what you mean about the wind drag of that huge "parachute" above the roof of the X5. I borrowed a flat front Haulmark trailer from a friend one weekend and just towing it home from his house 50 miles I had a heck of a time holding 65 in 5th gear with a head wind. I threw my Yakima roof pod on for the long tow, and was amazed how much easier the trailer pulled. I can only speculate that the pod's aero shape was able to cut the wind higher up, and perhaps deflected some of the air over the trailer. Now I pull a V-nose enclosed trailer and it slices through the air very efficiently.

Now if I could find a set of mirrors so I could actually see around my trailer without the mirror extensions vibrating so badly that they're basically useless.

The factory hitch has two different ratings on it- load carrying and weight distributing. I've never seen anything that says not to use a WD platform, and have towed probably 30,000 on this X5 with rear self leveling and never an issue.