Re: Recommendations on Trailer Brakes

["Michel Drainville" <MDrainville@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I'm not an expert in trailers, but I will tell you what I know.

The "surge" brake system (with a master cylinder on the trailer hand) has
the advantage that the trailer can be installed on any vehicle and doesn't
require any special installation on that specific vehicle. The only
drawback I see with that system, is that you cannot backup as you want. The
mechanism will lock the wheels during backup. To be able to backup without
the wheels locking up, you need to go out of the vehicle, and lock the
mechanism, then backup, then go out again to unlock the mechanism to
activate the brake system again.

For the electric brake trailer, the pulling vehicle needs to have a
controller installed. So you cannot install the trailer on any vehicle. The
nice thing is that you have a kind of potentiometer that you can activate
from the driver seat to apply more brake to the trailer if needed.

Some dual axle trailers have brakes only on one axle. So if lots of braking
power is needed, don't forget to take a look at that.

Michel Drainville
91 318ic