Brake adjustment questions in the real world

About every 7 years or so I take a peek at the bearing and brakes.

If the bearings look good I throw the tire back on and call it good. I get about 7 to 10 years out of a set of magnets. I think I've only changed the shoes once and that was like 15 years ago.

So to answer your question, about every 7 years.

If the trailer never sits and never goes in the water, bearings should go 25 or 30 thousand miles. If you let it set for 3 or 4 months the bearings might not last 2 years. I adj the brakes when they don't work like I want, maybe every 4 or 5 years, but never replaced a set on a TT. At work we changed the electric brake shoes on the trailers about every 30,000 miles, some salesmen were hard on equipment.

FYI, on my used trailer.. dealer said brakes worked.

well I pulled all 4 drums..( 12 inch drums ) 3 of the 4 brakes had NO linings.. so only 1 brake worked. and these magnet operated brakes do not go metal to metal .... they just no longer make contact with the drums..

dealer did replace all 4 brake sets. Free. backings and all.

I would guess every 3 years or 15,000 miles. also do bearing service then.

my opinion.

K Charles wrote:
If the trailer never sits and never goes in the water, bearings should go 25 or 30 thousand miles. If you let it set for 3 or 4 months the bearings might not last 2 years. I adj the brakes when they don't work like I want, maybe every 4 or 5 years, but never replaced a set on a TT. At work we changed the electric brake shoes on the trailers about every 30,000 miles, some salesmen were hard on equipment.

I'm curious, why would bearings go bad quickly if a trailer sits for 2-3 months? Never heard of that before.

At beginning of camping season I do an adjustment on brakes, check wiring connections and take volt readings

Repack bearings every 5 yrs unless I get strange readings using my infrared thermometer.

In 11,000 miles my Chinese bearings were failing. Magnets and brakes are dependent on how and where you drive. Many don't setup the brake controller correctly and brake life and adjustments can vary greatly.

Adjust your brakes every few thousand miles till you get an idea what works for you.

I pull my hubs every year and completely service them.

A few weeks ago I repacked my bearings and adjusted the brakes. First time since the trailer was new 2.5 years ago. All of the bearings looked new and there was plenty of grease. Except for one brake, they all looked good. The one brake had a bad wire connection and had never engaged. Good point to that is I could see the thickness of the new pads vs the pads that have been coast-to-coast a few times; couldn't tell much difference.

As for adjusting brakes, Dexter recommends every 3,000 miles. You'd think our expensive trailers would have self-adjusting brakes.

azdryheat wrote:
A few weeks ago I repacked my bearings and adjusted the brakes. First time since the trailer was new 2.5 years ago. All of the bearings looked new and there was plenty of grease. Except for one brake, they all looked good. The one brake had a bad wire connection and had never engaged. Good point to that is I could see the thickness of the new pads vs the pads that have been coast-to-coast a few times; couldn't tell much difference.

As for adjusting brakes, Dexter recommends every 3,000 miles. You'd think our expensive trailers would have self-adjusting brakes.

Your brake controller never gave you a fault code?

I don't think you are going to find too many controllers out there that will tell you that one brake is not operating.

Boon Docker wrote:
I don't think you are going to find too many controllers out there that will tell you that one brake is not operating.

What? Even my 10 year old P2 can do that. It gives me an n.c. when just one wire is not connected. I don't know if the factory BC's will do that though? I would think so but?