By Russ and Tiña De Maris
A regular RVtravel.com reader sent in this question: “I have a question about brake controllers and travel trailers. How do you adjust them? How do you know if they are too tight or not adjusted correctly?” These are great questions, and we can offer some suggestions.
Brake controller theory
First, a little on brake controller theory. Travel trailers and fifth wheels are typically equipped with electric brakes. When you step on the brake in the tow vehicle, electric current is sent from the tow vehicle back to the trailer. This current runs through an electromagnet, which forces the trailer brake pads to press onto the trailer’s brake drums. The friction between the brake pads and the drums slows the vehicle, and converts kinetic energy (for our purposes, the energy moving the trailer) into heat.
The job of the brake controller is to send the appropriate amount of current flow back to the brakes. You could send a full jolt of electricity back to the brakes, and they’d respond by jamming the brake pads into the drums, locking up the brakes. That’s converting that kinetic energy into heat way too fast—skidding the tires, making vehicle control difficult or impossible, and wearing out the brakes in a hurry.
What happens when the brake controller isn’t set properly
Set properly, the brake controller also pairs up the tow vehicle and the trailer in the sense that both are braking for themselves. Too little power to the trailer brakes, and slowing or stopping the trailer falls to the tow vehicle brake system. Too much power to the trailer brakes, then the trailer brakes get the job of slowing or stopping the tow vehicle. Not set properly, then you’ll be needlessly wearing out the brake system of one or the other, and there’s a costly and unsafe proposition for sure.
Bottom line: It’s important to set the brake controller for the job at hand. For some, this will mean doing the initial setting and tweaking the system to get everything honed to “towing perfection.” However, if you use your tow vehicle to tow different trailers—for example, using your pickup to haul your travel trailer, and then on other occasions using it to haul a utility trailer—the different trailer weights will require adjusting the controller more often.
Horse trailer users find this a frequent issue—hauling maybe two horses today, one tomorrow, or “deadheading” with no load on at all.
Different brake controllers require different approaches to settings
That’s why it’s critical that you know what brake controller you have installed in your tow vehicle, and you have the manufacturer’s instructions on setup. Don’t have the instruction manual or quick setup guide? Get the manufacturer name and model number, hit the internet and look for it. If your controller is old enough not to have a presence on the web, then it’s high time you got a new brake controller.
Brake control settings
However, here are some observations about brake control settings that apply across the board. Temperature makes a big difference. You’ll need to pre-warm your brakes prior to “dialing in” the right setting. Your manual will tell you how to do that. Then it gets dicey—you’re often told to engage the manual brake lever on the controller while cruising down the road, one suggests, “at 25 miles per hour or less.”
By the use of the manual engagement lever on the controller, you’ll be using the brakes on the trailer, not the tow vehicle. All very well and good, but if too much power is routed back to the trailer brakes and you’re cruising along at 25 miles per hour, you may have a BIG mess to clean up back in the trailer should the brakes lock up.
At least one expert recommends checking your brakes in your driveway at, say, 5 miles per hour. The objective is to see to it that the power setting of the controller will slow the rig down—NOT lock the brakes.
We recommend finding an empty parking lot to do your adjustment. Doing so in a gravel lot gives us a lot more feedback than on pavement—you’ll hear that gravel if you lock up, and the skid marks are a clear indicator that you’ll need to back off the gain adjustment on the controller. Once we know where things sit on gravel, then fine-tuning on pavement ensures we have the controller set where it needs to be.
RELATED
- What is the best travel trailer brake controller for my truck?
- Brake failures and the importance of a wheel bearing pack service
- How to identify an improper trailer brake setting
RVDT2824
My GMC dealer installed a CURT Spectrum break controller on my GMC Sierra. I always had difficulty figuring out if it was adjusted properly and never felt safe with it. The GMC dealer was no help and Curt never got back to me. It had too many adjustments. No numbers to show the setting, just dots that would light up different colors depending on what you were setting up. Since I didn’t feel safe using it I traded it in on a F150 hybrid with factory brake controller. The CURT Spectrum brake controller was the worst I ever had.