Caravan Newbie in a panic- MTPLM - BMW530D M Sport

You are looking at a hefty caravan for your first venture into our great hobby.  There are plenty of other makes with much lighter weights that would probably meet your requirements and I would recommend that you look for a lighter caravan at or near the recommended 85% figure.  You also need to look at the payload of the caravan, it is all too easy to exceed it especially with 2 kids and their holiday pieces.  I assume you will have an awning, you may well have a motor mover fitted (recommended), chairs/table, BBQ, bikes;  these will eat into your payload before you add your personal kit.  The Club's outfit matching service, in the Advice Section link above,  will give you a guide and there are others.

However, so long as your outfit is legal it is your choice, we just offer suggestions.  Happy hunting.

The Club's outfit matching service, in the Advice Section link above, will give you a guide and there are others. 

I prefer https://www.towcar.info/ as I found faults with the CMC one. 

A 160kg payload doesn't go far since it includes battery and a second gas bottle if that is your want. If you fit an allwheel drive motormover and battery you would be down to 80 kg payload. Our previous 4 berth was single axle with standard payload of 155 kg. By the time I subtracted a single axle mover and battery weights I would have been down to 100kg. With just two adults I could not have managed on that. I upgraded to about get about 155kg after battery and mover.

With your proposed van, as I need a mover to get onto my property due to a narrow road in front, and with a twin axle would have needed an all wheel drive I could not have managed with your standard payload and would have needed to upgrade the mptlm. 

Can you fit a tow bar to an M series or is it just the M5 that you can’t?

What do you mean by BMW MTPLM?

You mean kerbweight, not MTPLM, don't you? MTPLM is an absolute maximum any can never vary.

Where did you get the kerbweight figure from? Kerbweight is specific to each and every vehicle so published figures only give a rough guide. The only accurate way of establishing kerbweight is to actually weigh the car.

My BMW X4 is roughly the same weight and I tow an 1800kg caravan.

The outfit you suggest is legal. 85% is just a guide recommended by the club.  It is not a good idea to try to increase the weight of the car with a roof rack. The BMW has excellent handling so you should be OK if you take it easy and don't overload the van or the car. Be strict with the family on weight for the first few trips and see how it goes..Stick below the speed limits, 60mph on dual carriageways, 50mph on single carriageways. And enjoy your trip.

OP has obviously confused his/her caravan max weights with the car's gross weight & gross train weight. And surely if it came to the crunch, the weight numbers on the VIN plate would be used rather than a weight chitty from a local weigh bridge .... 🤔

There's a weight shown on my car's V5 .... I've no idea if that's anything like the actual weight of the car bearing in mind it has a various factory fit options (towbar, off road pack inc diff locks etc)

surely if it came to the crunch, the weight numbers on the VIN plate would be used rather than a weight chitty from a local weigh bridge

The crunch is that the OP is basing his decisions on the kerb weight of the car wherever he obtained. The only thing of interest to police etc is the maximum permitted tow weights. 

For my X-Trail there are a number of sources giving conflicting information. The only definite answer is to weigh the car. My V5 or the plate on the car does not give the vehicles weight in any event

Comments on here about payload are very relevant. Our last van was a Barcelona. After owning it for 3 years, I eventually got round to taking it to the weigh bridge. With AWD MM fitted, gas bottles, battery, Aquaroll, Wastemaster, cutlery and plates/cups etc and the usual stuff we took away - but NO clothes, food, bedding etc, it came in at 1820 kg. Had to have a drastic re-think about what went in the van. It’s probably the main reason I changed the van to one with a more realistic payload of 360kg.

Another point to remember when considering weight is that the load on your towball is part of the weight carried in your car. This will typically be somewhere between 75 and 100kg maximum and should not be exceeded. It will reduce what else you can put in or on the car by that amount. Your car handbook should give this figure but, whatever it is, the caravan hitch will almost certainly be limited to 100kg max. 

Kerbweight has no legal relevance, nor is it shown on the VIN plate, so a local weighbridge weight chitty only serves to allow accurate calculation of the weight ratio and that is only to satisfy your own personal interest, nothing else.