BMW X5 35d as tow vehicle
I've been towing a 21 foot TT the last 6 years with a Jeep Liberty CRD. The trailer is 3860 lbs empty, and around 5,000 lbs loaded for a trip. This is at the Jeep's official weight limit, and while it...
Forum Discussion
brulaz wrote:
One thing that bothered me when I was looking into Touareg TDIs was that they did not want you to use a WDH. But using VW's own very short shank tow bar, the max tow rating was about 7-7.5K and the max tongue weight was about 10% of that IIRC, so not bad. Still I was concerned.
I understand other unibody vehicles have similar restrictions. Does the BMW?
Can't answer your question about the BMW, but we towed a 4,500 lb TT with our Touareg TDI using a WDH for 2 years, maybe 8,000 miles total with no problems. It handled much better with the WDH and I wouldn't want to tow without it, although some people do. It's probably best to use one with light (600 lb) tension bars. Most have those 1,000+ bars which would transfer much more torque to the frame.
These small turbo diesels are great for towing smaller TT's. It's a perfect solution. Get a big truck to haul and tow big loads, or one of these for small ones.
Someone mentioned reliability. These are complicated vehicles, and there are a lot of things to go wrong -- especially with the electronics, but as long as you maintain them I don't think they are any worse than anything else with lots of electronics. Ours has not needed any repairs in 66,000 miles, but there was one low DEF warning that would not clear without dealer intervention, and one other warning that cleared on its own after restarting.
