Travel Trailer Electric Brakes

[Danj2001]

Seeking comments. I just had new brakes installed on my Heartland Mallard. On the first drive from the shop (La Mesa RV), the brakes would barely slow the trailer with full brake controller application (Tekonsha P3). I brought it back and they adjusted the brakes. Once again, upon braking, the electric brakes still would hardly engage. I have a good relationship with the dealer and trust them from past experience. I opted to buy a new brake controller on the off-chance it could be bad. The service representative said to bring it back if the new controller didn't fix the problem (I'm waiting on the new controller now). That's where we are. The tech says that the brakes are working and they are but barely. Now, has anyone had this or a similar situation and if so, what was the problem? Thanks in advance.

[jancoe1]

Brand new electric brakes need a break in period. Drive the truck and trailer up to 30 mph. Use manual brake control lever and activate and use to almost completely stop rig. Let off drive another few miles and repeat. Do this a handful of times and the park and let brakes cool. After brakes cool do it again. The brakes need to burnish themselves into the drums. After doing this a second time braking power will greatly improve. If it hasn't gotten better, the technician does not know how to adjust brake drag on new brakes.

[dustyone]

jancoe is correct. They do need burnished in to work correctly. The way it was explained will work well to do it. Remember the cool down period. You don't want to warp the drums.

[tpaul]

The other thing that sometimes happens is, even though the brakes are usually self adjusting they need to be manually tightened close to the drums as the last step in installing. The last time they did my brakes I had almost no brakes to start with. Got better as they self adjusted.

[04fxsts]

Pretty much all brakes need a break in period, at least any I have ever experienced. I just did front pads on my F-150 and they needed to be used to stop several times before they worked correctly. Jim.