Camper brakes working properly or not?
We have a 2013 Rockwood Roo 183L (Hybrid Camper that weights ~ 3,500 lbs dry) that we've used about 6 trips. It was purchased last year so it is essentially 1 year old. The dealer set up my hitch and ...
Forum Discussion
OLWalker wrote:Buck50HD wrote:
Theoretical stopping distance (you can verify this with just your unloaded vehicle) should be less than 30 feet from 25MPH. This does not include reaction time and assumes pavement and decent ABS performance. It also assumes your TV has enough brakes to lock all 4 on pavement (I know the Tundra does).
At 113 feet, that is worse than expected with no trailer brakes at all, especially with a Tundra and that small trailer. Are you sure you are getting the truck to cycle on ABS? You're not going to hurt it if you just do one panic stop and let it cool.
If you have 10" brakes on that light of a trailer, it should lock unless there is something wrong or just have not worn in yet.
Buck50HD - just want to make sure I understand.
1. I am stopping at 113 feet just using the manual override on the brake controller and the trailer brakes. I am not pressing the brake pedal on the Tundra pickup. The Tundra has some pretty awesome/oversized brakes, so I'm pretty sure I could stop it pretty quick using the Tundra brakes.
2. I've driven about 1,700 miles with the trailer (and I'm pretty sure they are 10" brakes). Do you think the brakes might not have burnished in at 100% yet?
Sounds like the consensus is that I should be able to lock up the brakes on the trailer.
Sorry, thought you were using the truck brakes as well. I would at least make sure they can lock on good, packed gravel, which would be about 70% of full potential on the trailer. Combine that with the 100% you will get from the truck and you are probably at about 90% of your overall potential, depending on how the weight is distributed.
With just the trailer, if it's 3500 lb, minus 10% on the truck, plus you lose some more to the truck from transfer during braking, I'd say the trailer has about 3000 lb on the axles, at most. So, if the total rig is around 9700 lb (6200 truck), your stopping distance would be around 80-100 feet. Soooo, you are probably REALLY close to enough trailer brake power to lock on pavement. I would bet they can lock on gravel, based on your numbers. Have you tried it?
