Question on 5th wheel brakes
I'm wondering if I have an issue with the brakes on my 2015 cyclone toy hauler. When I arrive at my campsite, and back in, I manually turn on my trailer brakes for the last couple of feet to take t...
Forum Discussion
valhalla360 wrote:Terryallan wrote:
Truthfully. the trailer brakes should engage as soon as you pull the lever.
That's actually not how they work.
- For trailer drum brakes, once the magnet is energized, the tire needs to roll a bit before the brakes actually engage. Going down the road at 60mph, it's a tiny fraction of a second. It's beyond the ability of the average human to detect the lag. Backing at 1mph, it's not instantaneous and as the driver, you can recognize it.
- Brake controllers are designed primarily around road driving conditions. They don't want to lock up the trailer brakes at the first light tap of the brake pedal during high speed maneuvers. But at 5mph, the truck brakes are typically sufficient to stop even fairly large trailers, so it's not critical to design them for maneuvering in a campground.
But as others have said, if you chock the wheels, it's a non-issue for the OP's question.
Part of my procedure when pulling out of storage is to manually activate my trailer brakes when I am slowly rolling to test them. And those brakes almost immediately activate and yank back on the trailer. That is with my F350. May work differently on other trucks and trailers. Never tried them manually in reverse.
