trailer brake saga (a short story)

[eblanks]

I'm not gonna even try to play the blame game on this one. Like any other miserable consumer experience the vendors are quick to say it's not their fault.

The truck is due for service soon and I will definitely have the brakes checked although during my transporting of the tractor I really never stood hard on the brakes, it's rural country where I was driving and I always had plenty of stopping distance. As a follow up, I had a buddy of mine do some welding on the bush hog and when I towed it over to his house the trailer brakes a make a world of difference. So everything is back in tip top condition and ready to haul it back to the farm.

[AlanB]

Originally Posted by LoneCowboy

How could that not be Toyota's fault?
Every Big 3 pickup truck for the last 15+ years has had a plug there waiting to go in, takes 30 seconds.
Certainly it's their fault.
design flaw (or overlooked "feature")

Apparently you have something against Toyota, and as I don't have one I have no idea,

I do not believe that the 98 and previous Chevrolet's had the plug, I seem to remember having to buy the universal and running down wires etc. So you may want to ammend that to the last 10 years or so.

[skipmarcy]

Originally Posted by AlanB

Apparently you have something against Toyota, and as I don't have one I have no idea,

I do not believe that the 98 and previous Chevrolet's had the plug, I seem to remember having to buy the universal and running down wires etc. So you may want to ammend that to the last 10 years or so.

I could be mistaken but I thought only trucks that came with a "tow package" were wired for trailers. Maybe in the last few years they've started including the wiring harness in all of them, can't really say but in years past they didn't have it unless they were built with the tow packages.

[aczlan]

Originally Posted by skipmarcy

I could be mistaken but I thought only trucks that came with a "tow package" were wired for trailers. Maybe in the last few years they've started including the wiring harness in all of them, can't really say but in years past they didn't have it unless they were built with the tow packages.

my parents 1999 15 passenger E350 w/the 7.3 PSD did not have the tow pkg but had a 4pin plug on it and was prewired for a brake controller. I would assume that all '99+ full size Fords were prewired for trailer lights and brakes.

Aaron Z

[Gravdigr]

I'm suprised you had so much trouble braking without trailer brakes with such a light load. Back when my boss was really cheap we routinely hauled our 6,000lb backhoe on a 1,500lb trailer with a 78 F250 and never really had any trouble braking despite having to go down a large hill on the way to that cemetery. Though luckily it was only about a 5 mile trip. When we finally did get trailer brakes hooked up (amazing how he'll install brakes for us after a $300 fine) it was quite a difference. Now that I'm the boss I don't have to put up with that BS anymore.

[wroughtn_harv]

Lone Cowboy might like to know that my 2003 C5500 (chevrolet) took me three days to hook up the electric brake controler. I refused to do what the outfitters suggested, rig it in, run a new wire from the dash to the trailer plug. I wanted it to be wired right using the factory set up.

I was able to do that after I hand traced the brake wire from the factory trailer plug at the back to the firewall. Then I had to tear apart the dash to trace back the wiring again, to the firewall. It wasn't until I cut apart the wiring loom at the firewall that I discovered the wire from the back was folded back. This was also true of the wire from the dash. To make it work I had to splice these two wires together.

We don't own a foreign car at our house. A friend of mine has two, they're Dodge trucks, assembled in Mexico.

[eblanks]

I think I finally figured out some of the issues with my truck not being pre-wired. I bought the truck from my Dad a year ago, he told me it had the trailer towing package. I quizzed him a little more about it, and found out that the tow package was not on this truck from the factory, he had the dealer install it when he bought it. That seems to be the missing link in this whole mess.

[Gary Fowler]

I have a 2007 Chevy 1500 series truck with factory tow package. It has a 6 way plug for hooking up the lights and I assume the brakes on trailers equipped with them. Can anyone tell me if I would need to buy any type of brake manager package like is being discussed here or is it already on the truck. I have only used it with an adapter to adapt it to a 4 way flat for my boat so I dont know how it would work with an electric brake setup.

[Gravdigr]

Check your manual or ask the dealer. Normally 'tow package' means trans fliud cooler if AT, prewired lights with separate fuses for the trailer lights, 12v power to the barrel plug, and a harness under the dash to plug in a brake controller. But I have noticed newer trucks tow package includes computers that control almost everything when you are towing and they have a brake controller built in. Chances are if you had one of those you'd know it because they are $$.

I would say check your manual and if it mentions a harness under the dash to connect an electric brake controller then you will need one. I hear very good things about the prodigy but my boss was always too cheap to get one so I always had junk controllers that last a year or 2.

[bandit67]

Originally Posted by eblanks

I purchased the highly recommended Tekonsha Prodigy and a wiring harness that was said to fit the 02 - current year Tundras. I literally pulled the entire dash apart trying to find the plug that every piece of literature said would be right there near the emergency brake. It did not exist. Finally I found a Tundra web forum where I was alerted to the fact that the 02 Tundra's do not have this plug, it wasn't until 03 that they started and Tekonsha's web site is wrong.

That's bull that Toyota didn't start with the Tundra dash harnesses until '03. I had an '01 Tundra that had the harness under the dash. Took less than 2 minutes to pull the panel, find the harness, and plug in the Prodigy harness.

Maybe Toyota decided to cut even more corners come '02 in the interest of saving $$. That's why I got rid of my '01 Tundra after 17k miles - too many cost-cutting shortcuts that kept it from living up to the quality I'd come to expect from my ownership of previous Toyota trucks. That was the most dissapointing truck I've ever owned.