Quote:
Originally Posted by PopBeavers
I had forgotten something I read in my truck owner's manual, so I looked it up again.
The Integrated Trailer Brake Control System is integrated with your vehicles brake, anti-lock brake and StabileTrak (if equipped) systems. In trailering conditions that use your vehicle's anti-lock or StabiliTrak systems to activate, power sent to the trailer's brakes will be automatically adjusted to minimize trailer wheel lock-up.
I think that what this means is that if I slam on the brakes, resulting in the ABS taking control and pulsing the brakes to just barely avoid skidding the truck wheels, then it also reduces the braking power to the trailer to at least attempt to avoid having the trailer skid.
I have not tested this feature. But it sounds interesting.
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The good news is that the brake controller is paying attention to the ABS system, though we don't know how it gets the message or what the message is. The bad news is that on the trailer end it's still the same brakes and there are no sensors back there to tell the controller if/when lockup is happening. So it must be either dialing down the trailer brake response in hopes of preventing lockup or blindly trying to pulse the trailer brakes in an attempt to be helpful when the TV ABS activates. I have no idea if/how well either of these would actually work, but they sound like good ideas to try.
Real ABS would buy us a little shorter stop and give us better road control. But ABS is no panacea either, providing an increased risk of rollovers and actually longer stopping distances under some conditions (here's a study with some interesting observations, even though it's a little dated:
http://www.monash.edu.au/muarc/repor...ectiveness.pdf).
Regardless, driving 60 instead of 70 or 65 instead of 75 should give us a shorter stopping distance than anything a new controller can do for our existing trailer braking systems.
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