Best brake pads for a tow vehicle?
What are some of the best brake pads you can get for a two vehicle? Something that can stand up to hard braking, without fading on you. I have a set of cheap pads on my Ram 1500, and had them fade t...
Forum Discussion
imq707s wrote:If the grade was too steep for your truck to handle it, then you are under trucked for your usage.Huntindog wrote:
The problem is not your brake pads.
It is your driving or an undersized TV.
The brakes should not be needed/used to control speed on descents. Use lower gears and or the exhaust brake. If this is not possible, then the likely cause is a undersized TV for the load.
ANY brake pads will overheat if used as the primary means of controlling speed on descents.
Ram 1500 Quad Cab 1/2 ton pulling a 4,400lb TT......pretty sure the truck isn't undersized. It was a steep enough grade going down that engine braking wasn't doing a thing. The trailer brakes saved my bacon.
When I first started out towing many years ago, knowing nothing and before info was readily available on the internet, which hadn't been invented yet.... I had too small of a TV. However, even though I was vastly under trucked, I went down some very serious mountain grades WITHOUT using my brakes. You just gotta pick a gear that works,
and don't try to go TOO fast. Ignore the speed limit. Your limit will be slower than that.
Back in my sprint car days, we occasionally encountered conditions that made the fastest way around the track required heavy brake usage. Managing the brakes was the key too winning. Using them too hard would mean losing them before the race was over, and losing the race. There were always those that lost their brakes. Keep in mind, that money was no object to having the best of everything with these cars... And that destroying the brakes was perfectly acceptable so long as they lasted to the end of the race. And still there were always some that failed too soon.
So ANY brakes can be overheated if used too hard. Better pads will just buy a little more time. You need to be able to use engine braking as your primary way of controlling speed on descents.
That means adjusting your driving and/or TV to the conditions.
Also, your (stock) TT brakes are vastly inferior to any TV brakes in use today. They still use drums and are manually adjusted. This is 1950s technology. So if your lashup was properly adjusted, then there should be no way that your TT brakes outlasted your TV brakes....which likely has 4 wheel discs.
