GDawgA4

My brother bought a clean E39 540i 6sp. Since it was not registered yet and two states away from him, he could have called a transport but why not test out the Q7?

We rented an auto transport trailer from U-Haul and bought the tow kit (2" ball mount with ball rated for 7500 lbs, pin and clip) along with the 7-pin to 4-pin flat adapter. FYI, if you're going to rent a trailer from U-Haul, all their wiring is flat 4-pin so you'll need the adapter to power the trailer lights.

U-Haul's trailer weights just over 2200 lbs. Towing that up (80 mi one way) to the car wasn't bad. Yeah you notice the extra weight but not terrible at all. Adding the 540i, which is just under 3800 lbs, gets you pulling around 6000 lbs. The 3.0T did a great job at pulling that extra weight. As expected, acceleration takes a hit but she had no problems getting up to speed when merging, maintaining speed or climbing inclines. She was rock solid stable going 65-70 mph. On the way up I got 21 mpg. On the way back, by the time we got home it dropped down to just under 20 mpg. I was pretty surprised at the mileage. I kept it in Sport mode to avoid hunting gears in Drive. Sport kept the revs up just enough to keep it in the power band. It did not need to drop a gear when maintaining speed most of the time. And the brakes did just fine. I never felt like it didn't have enough brakes to slow down or stop.

Yeah, squat! I thought there'd be more... The ride didn't suffer enough to notice. It was still just as smooth going over road surfaces, bumps, etc.

sundayfish

Thanks for posting! Not much out there on towing with the Q7. I have a Polaris Ranger UTV that I usually pull with my F-150, but we ordered the Q7 with the towing package so it had the ability to pull it as well. Trailer and UTV weighs about 3500lb, so not as heavy as what you did here.

FairwellQ7TDI

That 540i is one fantastic automobile, I remember Motortrend's first-drive on that car, beat a Ferrari Testarossa in all categories except for top speed.

Bozman5000

Thanks for sharing OP!

RickObe

Does your Q7 have active suspension? If so, do you feel like it made a difference?

GDawgA4

Nope, normal suspension. I honestly thought the ride was just fine, no issues. I do believe the air suspension has the self-leveling feature in the rear for when towing.

santhony

Thanks for posting. I am planning to do some towing.. thought I missed a lot by not going for air suspension. This helps

Dasaint

Do you have a brake controller?

GDawgA4

No. I did not hook up an electronic brake controller. The u-haul trailer has surge brakes which did fine.

larryV

The Q7 tows extremely well even right close to its rated max capacity. I've already towed my enclosed aluminum trailer loaded with car, tools, spare wheels/tires all adding up to around 6500 lbs, on a couple of long trips from Chicago to NY and back, and to Michigan as well. Tows like a champ, and at no time did I feel it was ever short on power/torque or felt unstable at at speed. I do use a Tekonsha P3 brake controller that was installed by my dealer since my trailer has electric brakes, and it works very well. The air suspension was definitely nice to have as it eliminated any rear squat, and I was surprised to see that connection of the 7-pin connector to the trailer automatically activated a "trailer mode" on the air suspension, whatever that does.