[hassmaschine]

Originally Posted by nsjames

I feel this.
I bought my junk and less than 30 days I was taking an unknown 100K mile BMW across the country.

everyone told me I was gonna die.

I put 30K miles on it in the first 12 months, only thing that failed was a starter.

Yeah, I dont get that. I've had 100k+ mile BMWs as my only car for nearly 20 years.... Pretty sure I'm not dead yet?

It's worth mentioning I suppose that none of them were turbo.. But one began life as an automatic AWD..

Hell.. My wife just took our X5 on a 1000 mile road trip.. By herself, with 2 kids. She had a small tool kit, a first aid kit, and a quart of oil... She even took it off road (for real). And I barely trust that car, although realistically it hasn't given us a single issue in the year we've owned it.

[dwashy]

Originally Posted by Phyrexia

Yeah, I tend to do all the work on my cars myself. The tow hitch install was quite easy and straightforward.

I agree, a diff swap would have been nice but wasn't totally required. MILVS would have helped too.

If I hadn't had quite as much stuff, I would have left the Performance springs in the back. But I had to put some things in the trunk behind the axle so I knew it would pull the car down pretty low.

Yea the hitch itself was pretty easy, wiring a bit more complex for me. Were you able to wire the turn signals in without causing errors to display in iDrive? I only get errors for turn signals, for which I heard I may need resistors to resolve. Currently I just run a switch so I can have them working when I need to lol

[Phyrexia]

Originally Posted by dwashy

Yea the hitch itself was pretty easy, wiring a bit more complex for me. Were you able to wire the turn signals in without causing errors to display in iDrive? I only get errors for turn signals, for which I heard I may need resistors to resolve. Currently I just run a switch so I can have them working when I need to lol

I'm pretty handy but I did botch the wiring install in the beginning by mixing up two wires (essentially I wired two of my outputs to one input on the relay box)

However, I didn't have any issues with warning lights. My car doesn't have iDrive. What kind of wiring kit did you have?

[nsjames]

Originally Posted by hassmaschine

Yeah, I dont get that. I've had 100k+ mile BMWs as my only car for nearly 20 years.... Pretty sure I'm not dead yet?

It's worth mentioning I suppose that none of them were turbo.. But one began life as an automatic AWD..

Hell.. My wife just took our X5 on a 1000 mile road trip.. By herself, with 2 kids. She had a small tool kit, a first aid kit, and a quart of oil... She even took it off road (for real). And I barely trust that car, although realistically it hasn't given us a single issue in the year we've owned it.

because people think that these cars are full of magical pixie dust that somehow makes them 10x more difficult to diagnose and repair.

Honestly, I've found my first BMW far easier to work on and diagnose than the average domestic. It took me 6 days of dicking with my buddy's 03 malibu to diagnose it's no start issue. The whole time I was dealing with an archaic fuel injection architecture and limited sensor data.
oh, and really dumb design decisions made by GM bean counters because it saved 10 minutes of labor on the assembly line.

Originally Posted by dwashy

Yea the hitch itself was pretty easy, wiring a bit more complex for me. Were you able to wire the turn signals in without causing errors to display in iDrive? I only get errors for turn signals, for which I heard I may need resistors to resolve. Currently I just run a switch so I can have them working when I need to lol

Just buy the OEM trailer harness adapter that plugs into the plug in the back. it's like $150.

I hate hacking factory harnesses. People that cut up harnesses istead of buying an adapter should be shot.

[dwashy]

Originally Posted by Phyrexia

I'm pretty handy but I did botch the wiring install in the beginning by mixing up two wires (essentially I wired two of my outputs to one input on the relay box)

However, I didn't have any issues with warning lights. My car doesn't have iDrive. What kind of wiring kit did you have?

I used the Westphalia kit here

[rothwem]

Originally Posted by nsjames

Just buy the OEM trailer harness adapter that plugs into the plug in the back. it's like $150.

I hate hacking factory harnesses. People that cut up harnesses istead of buying an adapter should be shot.

You can't buy the OEM adapter in the US, or at least, you couldn't a year or so ago. I bought the E70 X5 trailer wiring kit, since the cars are similar ages, and the AHM module is the same P/N, but the wiring was a clusterfuck and I never got it installed before I sold me E91. If I get another E9x car though, I'd like to try again, espeically since I have a $250 wiring kit for a car I don't own sitting in a box in my garage.

Just FYI though, the kit required wire taps even on the X5, which I thought was weird.

The 2005 X3 I have right now has a plug and play wiring harness, you just have to pull some trim out and find the plug, wrapped in black foam padding, and plug it in, then find the other side of the wiring harness and plug that into the AHM module. No coding or anything is required...it just works. It'll even control the trailer brakes if your trailer is so equipped.