BMW X5 35d as tow vehicle

dodge guy wrote:
Good for you! wait till you get some miles on those German cars/suv`s. they will kill you in upkeep and repairs!

Yeah, I keep hearing that. And I suppose we'll find out ourselves.

We went with the X5 over competitors for one simple reason: somewhere I read a study that claimed that among the likely competitors in that segment of the market, the VW Taureg TDI, the Mercedes ML350, the Jeep Grand Cherokee, the X5, and a couple others I don't recall right off, the X5 was the least expensive to repair (now isn't that scary for owners of the others?).

Our other two vehicles currently are a VW Jetta TDI and a Jeep Liberty CRD. Previous was a Chevy Astro AWD. For what it is worth, all three were expensive to maintain, with the Jeep at the top of the list. Least reliable, most expensive car I've ever owned when it came to maintenance issues. That one is US (built in Toledo, Ohio) with an Italian engine.

And for what it is worth, the X5 was built in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

My personal opinion is that the more complex they are, the less reliable they are. On that score, the X5 is definitely the most complex. I'll have more data for ya in a 100,000 miles or so.

rwbradley wrote:
This is an interesting topic.

You are welcome. And thank you for YOUR report.

rwbradley wrote:
The only criticism I would have is there seems to be a spot at abt 95-100km/h where gas consumption increases significantly, which is an issue for freeway driving, but driving on US2 from Lake Placid to Bar Harbor for close to 8 hours thru mountains, I would say my mpg barely went down 20%.

There is no doubt that mileage starts to drop rapidly above 55 mph/95. Wind resistance is an exponential function. While you can get some improvements at certain speeds above that with gearing, above 65 mph/105 kph, things get expensive quickly.

rwbradley wrote:

It shows that you do not need a big muscle Pickup truck to pull a small to medium TT, that many modern SUV's and Sedan's with a V6 are up to the task if paired with the right trailer.
The owner of the dealer I went to writes a regular article in an RV magazine on hitch setups. He has done a few extreme ones (ie Mini Cooper pulling an Airstream Bambi), but the articles show that there are more factors than just towing capacity/horsepower of the TV and that if paired right you can pull a decent trailer with anything from a Taurus to a Porsche. If you are interested in reading the articles:
http://www.canamrv.ca/hitch-hints/

There's a guy on the VW TDI forums who uses an old Jetta TDI as a tug around his place for dragging a lot of huge loads back and forth. That Jetta is all of 90 hp, and clearly incapable of dragging the loads he uses it for down the road, but at 5 mph around his business, it works fine. And it is small and maneuverable. And cheap to run.