Hot brakes and Tall trailers
I have a small light tow rig. With our weight dist. hitch with sway control, it tows amazingly well. It almost drives like I'm not towing at all... until I look at the MPG... The issue I have is with ...
Forum Discussion
Lynnmor wrote:
Riding the brakes will make them hot.
Getting on the brakes real hard then off will make the brakes real hot then real cool.
There is no free lunch, you either use the brakes excessively or you don't. Brakes are a heat device and they are supposed to generate heat.
^ This.
I don't know how you can build any less heat by only intermittently but more aggressively using the brakes. All of the heat is caused by the energy needed to slow the vehicle...the whole conservation of energy thing. One difference I can come up with is by making the brakes hotter by using them aggressively, there is an increase in energy transfer to the air due to the higher temperature difference between the brakes and air.
It's all about losing more heat than you are adding. The best answer is to rely on the brakes less by using the back pressure of the engine or going slower in the first place.
Now if the trailer brakes are doing more than their share and the vehicle brakes are not getting excessively hot it's time to adjust the brake controller.
