[TurboDan737]

Hi All,

Was hoping you could give me some advice on this. I had a trailer hitch installed on my father's '15 X3 last week (I sold my SUV, so his gets the hitch now). I went to the usual mechanic and the hitch itself (a new Draw Tite) worked great. The wiring harness worked perfectly too – brakes, turn signals, regular lights, all work great.

The problem: the mechanic has it in the "side box" on the driver's side of the trunk behind the light where it is installed. The four-pin wire comes out of there and rolls out, and you have to run it under the trunk hood, outside to the connector in the trailer. It doesn't just slip through and "appear" outside the car like every other SUV I've ever had. He said "BMW recommends this," which I absolutely don't believe (and he refused to show me anything in writing that said as much).

I then go on YouTube and see a bunch of videos of guys installing these things in their driveways. I'm not mechanically-inclined, but obviously I've seen X3s on the road with trailer wiring out by the hitch and not hanging out the trunk. They told me there is no space for it in this car. Were they incorrect? Is it worth it to try to go to another place, or should we just deal with this? I'm not a big fan of closing a damn trunk hood on a wire every single time the trailer is used, plus aesthetically it's no good and the wire could get in the way of objects in the trunk itself.

Any advice would be appreciated.

[pungo]

That's a hack, find a shop that knows what they're doing.

[TurboDan737]

Originally Posted by pungo

That's a hack, find a shop that knows what they're doing.

That's the plan. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't off track here. I did read that some vehicles do not have space to run the wire through the bumper area and down to the hitch. Then again, I've videos of people installing wiring on '15 X3s in their driveway.

If I run into another mechanic who says this is the way it should be done (unlikely, but you never know... I unfortunately live in an area that's more occupied by Ford pickups than higher-end CUVs) is there something that would let me point them in the right direction?

[najnad]

Basically, the wires should be routed through the same hole as the wires for the parking sensors into the bumper area, and then down to the hole in the bumper cover where the hitch pokes out. The you either let it dangle or get some kind of bracket to hold it in place.

[najnad]

https://rparts-sites.s3.amazonaws.co...LL%20INSTR.pdf

[383vett]

Bubba needs to learn how to wire. Ask him to show you one BMW that has trailer wires hanging out the trunk.