First 5th Wheel--Bad Braking???
Hi, I just got my first 5th wheel and am a bit concerned about the braking. It weighs 12,500 pounds and has a 2500 pound pin weight. I am pulling it with my Ram 3500 which has a 4,200 pound max pay...
Forum Discussion
Thanks for the comments. But I am not following what incentive the dealer would have to falsely tell me that the hubs were scored and needed to be replaced. Yes, they could just tell me that and have me come back to a "fixed" RV, but the braking issue would be the same and I would still be dissatisfied.
The guy initially told me that he thought there was nothing wrong with my brakes because he applied them with the truck stopped and said the truck would not budge the trailer from a dead stop. So he said he thought it was probably my brake controller adjustment not being right and that although on the highest setting that maybe with a Ram I would need to adjust it while the truck was moving, etc.
I was not quite on board with that explanation and told him that it still did not do jack when I applied the brakes when driving. He told me that he had not yet driven it and that was only his initial assessment, but that he would take it out for a drive.
I then asked him if he thought an after market brake controller might be the fix (since some have said that the Ram controller sucks) and he said no (which if he were incentivized by money he would have gladly sold me a Prodigy that they had on the shelf)
He then went back to test drive the truck with the trailer. About 20 minutes later is when they came out and told me that they pulled the wheels and found the issue with the magnets scoring the hubs and that they would need to order new hubs. They could not explain why it happened and admitted it was not a normal situation and that normally this would be caused by a magnet clip coming loose but that this had not happened.
Of course I don't know that the real deal is, but I just can't see how it would be to their advantage to make this up, especially when they knew that making me come back after a 3 hour drive to get there was only going to make matters worse (and it did for my wife who was super, super pissed). Me on the other hand, I will be happy just to get the problem fixed. Which I am hoping this will fix it. I assume that the scored hubs would result in crappy braking and that will hopefully be the explanation for my poor or non-existant trailer braking
Matt
The guy initially told me that he thought there was nothing wrong with my brakes because he applied them with the truck stopped and said the truck would not budge the trailer from a dead stop. So he said he thought it was probably my brake controller adjustment not being right and that although on the highest setting that maybe with a Ram I would need to adjust it while the truck was moving, etc.
I was not quite on board with that explanation and told him that it still did not do jack when I applied the brakes when driving. He told me that he had not yet driven it and that was only his initial assessment, but that he would take it out for a drive.
I then asked him if he thought an after market brake controller might be the fix (since some have said that the Ram controller sucks) and he said no (which if he were incentivized by money he would have gladly sold me a Prodigy that they had on the shelf)
He then went back to test drive the truck with the trailer. About 20 minutes later is when they came out and told me that they pulled the wheels and found the issue with the magnets scoring the hubs and that they would need to order new hubs. They could not explain why it happened and admitted it was not a normal situation and that normally this would be caused by a magnet clip coming loose but that this had not happened.
Of course I don't know that the real deal is, but I just can't see how it would be to their advantage to make this up, especially when they knew that making me come back after a 3 hour drive to get there was only going to make matters worse (and it did for my wife who was super, super pissed). Me on the other hand, I will be happy just to get the problem fixed. Which I am hoping this will fix it. I assume that the scored hubs would result in crappy braking and that will hopefully be the explanation for my poor or non-existant trailer braking
Matt
