Anyone tow with an E39?

[bearman68]

Hi All.
Exactly as per title. It should have all the required attributes - big car, lots of power, diesel (525d) RWD.
But sometimes sum of the parts is less than the total, so just wondering if anyone has experience of said.
Only want to tow a smallish caravan.

Cheers

[Output Flange]

I tow my race car with my 530d Touring.

It's just as good as my previous X5s were.

[kambites]

I've towed a racing car with an E36 (323i) and that did the job well enough. I can't imagine the 5-series of the same era would be worse.

[Krikkit]

Don't E39s have occasionally flaky gearboxes? Cooling system would need to be in fine fettle as well.

[Output Flange]

Diesels tend to be stronger than petrols.

That said, mine is in for a new torque converter at the moment

[bearman68]

Manual box, I'm a mechanic with my own workshop, so if the box does fall to bits, or the clutch goes, what the hell.
It's only worth a shed, shed and a half, so what can possibly go wrong?

Thanks for the info, off to look for tow bars.

Cheers

[2stis]

I've got a couple of E39s and they are great at towing. My 540i Touring has a 6-speed manual box and I used it to move house, amongst other things:



Then added a newer one to the stable. With an empty trailer you wouldn't even notice the extra weight and even fully laden it tows effortlessly and you have to be careful not to stray over the lower speed limits!



As for tow bars I would strongly recommend the Westfalia detachable, as fitted as OE. It's well made and bolts into the car using existing mounting points (so no drilling required) and when removed it even fits neatly into a polystyrene cutout that comes as OE fitment in the spare wheel well!

[bearman68]

Thanks, great info, and reassuring. Thats also what I was thinking, track car on the trailer, towed by the BMW rather than the slow and noisy 4WD. Nice one.

[R0G]

I think the E39 has a towing capacity around 2000kg and the GVW is also around 2000kg so it correct then towing a trailer/caravan around 1500kg MAM/MTPLM would be ok for B licence towing if not got B+E

[TooMany2cvs]

2stis said:

As for tow bars I would strongly recommend the Westfalia detachable, as fitted as OE. It's well made and bolts into the car using existing mounting points (so no drilling required)

As any towbar being fitted to a post-97 car has to.

[Tommo Two]

Towed with generic 4x4, i find them very bouncy in general and a 1750 kg (car) trailer magnifies that, as does the quality of the British roads.

Now tow with a LWB Merc sprinter, same trailer and its great, really stable.

Have towed with 5 series E61 520d (manual box), stable good middle ground, better than 4x4 but not as good as the van, was a bit under powered up hill though.

Now have an E39 525d (auto)as back up tow vehicle / daily, not needed to use it yet, but the auto box is a bit sluggish and doesn't always give you the right gear, so i would imagine flicking it across to SMG would be better