Bright and early this morning I get a call for service. 36-foot residential model travel trailer, GW 11,700 pounds, had just had everything in the brake system replaced when his home dealership in Florida blew out the seals and covered the brakes with grease. Now everyone involved is convinced the trailer still has no brakes, even when pulling the break-away pin.

On the way from Florida, when he felt the brakes were not working, he also had a new electronic controller installed, before the grease drums and pads were discovered (original controller were replaced with no diagnostics). There is a lot more to this story, but I will just touch the high points.

Step #1 - Operate the brake controller on manual. It goes to 10, no fault message or signal.

Step #2 - Using my clamp meter with the truck unplugged, pull the break-away pin, 12.3 amp draw, so I know I have all the magnets are on board and good voltage.

Step #3 - Plug my test box into the seven pin, 12.3 amp draw using the controller on manual, so the amp draw from the controller is the same as from the seven pin. At this point, I don't see how I can have electrical problem, which was the owner's concern.

Step #4 - Grasping at straw, I look for loose connections under trailer and in J box, but things look first class.

Step #5 - With one wheel jacked up, spin the wheel and work the controller on manual. Stops the wheel immediate. Can also hear the brake shoes just barely kissing the drum and have strong hum from the magnets.

I give up. I advise the owner as near as I can tell the trailer brakes are working. Can't think of anything else to check, nor could the previous service center. I did advise him to review the owner's manual on his brake controller.

What I hate about calls like this is not being able to find anything wrong. He is pulling an 11,500 pound trailer (if the GW is correct) behind a Toyota Tundra. It is a bad tail wagger and he still is driving 65 MPH.

Anybody think of anything I missed? I am thinking he just has too much trailer for his truck.

Steve

 

He is pulling a 6 ton trailer off the bumper with a Tundra? Yea, that is too much trailer for the truck. 10.5k lbs is the highest published towing capacity for a Tundra.


Did the brake pads get replaced after the grease mess was discovered? That will soak into the pads and make them useless.

 

Everything new!

 

Wow talk about an accident waiting to happen. I bet his brakes on the tundra are out of adjustment just enough so the truck by itself stops ok but under load not so well. So brakes on trailer have to try and stop truck also. He should travel about 35 and hopefull not heading my way. He is way overloaded.

 

I am usually the last person to say we need more "big brother" involvement in our lives, but I have seen way too many recreational combos that were minutes from killing someone. It would be nice if any combo over 10k had to go through some kind of safety inspection, not just the commercial ones.

 

What I hated most about this one was I felt like it really was dangerous and since my hands were the last ones to touch it, I would be liable if something happened.

The owner was not evil or ill intended. He was just woefully short on knowledge. This was his third trip out in the trailer. He also had an F150, but he said even with his WD hitch, he could not control the sway above 50 mph. He said it swayed less with his Tundra, but he had to correct with his brake controller when tractor trailers went by.

One thing that was not lost on me was he had just come down the steepest longest incline in our area (I26 Ashveille to Johnson City) while believing that he had no trailer brakes.

I spent a lot of time educating and encouraged him to at least get a better sway control hitch. They headed back over the mountain to Southern Florida yesterday and hopefully made it.

I don't want more government involvement, but I wish we could find a good model to educate present and future RV owners. Is it just me, or don't we have a great many discussions, even in the towing forums, that reference weight, but in which no one knows how much actual weight they are talking about? Ahhhhhhhhhhh! (me screaming)

 

Just a thought....wondering if he used the trailer brakes so much he had brake fade?

 

Anything is possible. I think he had a very bad set-up from the git-go. Then the brakes got greased and the trailer was pushing him. Then everything went to panic mode. I know the shop that rebuilt his brakes and they are good, but I think he got scared and then he stopped thinking.

For example, he told me when he was driving slowly he could feel his trailer brakes work, but he couldn't feel them when he was driving fast. Shoot, I can't feel mine when we are on the Interstate.

Once I showed him he couldn't turn the trailer wheel with the controller activated manually, he said "oh, I must have brakes after all".

I do think he was probably being pushed by a big trailer. That was all I could come up with unless one wanted to make a case that both his initial controller and his new controller did not work at higher speeds, which I think is unlikely.

 

Lack of experience and knowledge, plus the wrong truck for the job. The F150 would have been better.


He didn't have it setup correctly is my guess as well. Maybe even too little for the setting on the gain.


Properly setup it should stop in short order. I had one of those wonderful stops today myself...you know the one where you stand on the brakes and thank goodness I have hydroboost.

 

Steve the only way to verify this is remove all the drums but it sounds like if they replaced the backing plates with new assemblies they have the rights and lefts reversed or if they just replaced shoes they reversed the secondary and primary shoes.

Denny

 

The customer had all the old parts in the back of his truck as he was going back to his dealer to show them the grease on the parts and try to get some money back.

This was one of those times where I went as far as I was going to go working in a KOA campsite. One of the things that makes what I do hard is customers so often are not good at reporting actual events and some of the stuff he was telling me contradicted other stuff.

Sometimes customers report back to me and this one was raving about how professional I was and said he had never had anyone walk him through every step of the process and show him the meter readouts, so I expect to hear from him again in the future. Said he was coming back to Tennessee next year and would see me then. Oh boy!

Steve

 

I would say to myself...good luck getting money back.

Steve, your the pro. Based on what you've posted. I would have you as my tech any day. If you move to Michigan let me know!

 

When he said they weren't working did the controller read out?

He may have not paid attention.

I've seen plenty of intermittent electric brake problems happen due to the wires getting hot as the run through the axle and then the saddles get welded and melts the insulation causing a short.

Hit a bump and grounds out then it doesn't then it does....etc

 

He was so inconsistent in his report, it was very hard to tell if he really knew what was or wasn't happening. He never said he controller was not reading out and he never got a fault message or fault indication.

I get so many calls from folks who misinterpret what is happening with all types of components, I have learned to eliminate the obvious over the phone before I ever head out. Nothing I hate more than charging someone for basically doing nothing. Just bad business as folks always resent it, so first I play "Twenty Questions", then I decide if I want the call.

Steve

 

I don't think you missed anything, Steve. IMHO, he has too much trailer and too little truck.