I'm having difficulties with my brake controller. I bought a pop up trailer last summer with electric trailer brakes. My truck at the time was a 2004 SCAB with an aftermarket Tekonsha brake controller that I installed myself. I towed it 2 times with the old truck and brakes worked well and were plenty strong. In Feb of this year I bought a 2009 SCREW and it has the factory brake controller built in the truck. I towed the trailer once with it and the brakes barely worked, even with the controller turned all the way up to 10 I could pinch the lever on the controller and the truck would idle forward with the trailer hooked up. I was doing some wheel bearing maintenance on the trailer and had the drums off, I noticed the magnet was worn but the pads still looked pretty new (trailer is a 2015). I did some research and testing and my magnets are good and learned how to properly adjust the brake pads. I adjusted the brake pads till the wheels would drag slightly when spun by hand. A quick test drive around the block and the brakes were definitely engaging but still not very strong. Turned the brake controller all the way back up and the trailer will slow the truck when squeezing the lever but only slightly. I don't understand how my Tekonsha controller would make the tires lock up, but the factory one barely slows the truck down. Any ideas on this? I'm taking a trip in 2 weeks and would like the trailer brakes to be working a little better than they are now. I have also cleaned my connector as well as done resistance checks on the trailer side of the wiring and all checks out.

 

Clarify specifically what you mean by "turned all the way up". Are you looking at brake controller gain, brake effort setting, or both? Have you gone through the full connection setup, to include naming the trailer? As and FYI, my 20' enclosed is effort medium, gain at 3 running light to medium and 4 running heavy.

 

I have the gain turned all the way up to 10. Mine is a 2009 so I do not believe there is any particular setup required like the newer trucks. I will check the manual though just to be safe. The gain is the only thing I have been able to adjust so far.

 

Wondering if the weight of your tent trailer is so small relative to the weight of your SCREW (and even lighter as compared to the weight of your SCAB) that the trailer's brake performance makes an inconsequential contribution to stopping power.

I'm suspecting that with the trailer brakes locked up that your SCREW would drag it along almost like it wasn't even there....

 

With the gain at 10 it should be locking the trailer's brakes when you manually activate the controller. If not I'd be making a stop by the trailer repair house before taking the truck to the dealership. The trailer house is equipped to tell you if the truck is at fault while the dealership is equipped to do nothing and charge you for it.

When I bought my new truck (switched from and 01 to an 18) one of my trailers was being faulted even though it worked fine on my other truck. Took it to the trailer house and it took them about three minutes to find a bad harness. Still worked fine on the old truck, but just enough short to screw up the more sophisticated truck.

 

Even though its a pop up trailer its a larger one and still weighs a bit. Unloaded I'm at about 2300 lbs and loaded around 2700. That's enough weight to feel and when correctly set up the brakes should be more noticeable.

I agree that with the gain at 10 it should lock the brakes. I followed some brake troubleshooting from etrailer.com and tested resistance on my magnets and it was within range. I also tested the wires from the plug to the brakes and had .5ohms which is normal. I may ask my neighbor to come over and hook up with his truck and try it and see what happens.

 

On my issue it worked on one truck and not the other, so don't put too much weight into your neighbor's truck. My issue was a rodent chewed harness. Everything looked good with the multimeter.