First 5th Wheel--Bad Braking???

Planning wrote:

bowler1 wrote:
Hi,
I just got my first 5th wheel and am a bit concerned about the braking.
Matt

The towed RV industry has lagged in certain technologies. A significant portion of the boat trailer industry use disc brakes, and a growing segment of OEM and aftermarket towed RV's are switching to disc brakes.

We put them on ours prior to receipt of the unit from the dealer. Many others have used a company called Performance Trailer Braking with almost universal excellent reviews of both the workmanship and the product performance. I have not yet seen a post from anyone who has gone to discs say that they regret the decision. Yes, there are some naysayers, but to my knowledge, none within the group that actually uses them.

The average cost for a turnkey system (Titan and the Titan Brakerite controller in view) is around $3000.

We very much enjoy ours.

Bingo on the PerformanceTrailerBraking.com folks. My Cardinal GVWR is just over 16K. Came with standard electric/drum brakes. My Ford with IBC, cranked up to 10, and aggressive setting, still felt weak. Mine even had self adjusters, so I went to parking lot, and did a lot of start/stops with the manual brake lever too hoping to adjust/seat/bed them to make them better. Finally, gave the boys a call, and a month later, had disc brakes. Boy, what a difference. I now run at 6, and anything higher will lock the wheels.

My next 5th, whenever that may be, will have disc from the factory.