Interesting Nashville.
I have pulled the pin and it made for more solid braking while moving from a stand still, but I could still move it with the truck with a lot of effort. I have 750 lbs of torque in front of me.
With just the lever squeezed I can actually drive away. The brakes are dragging, but I can still pull it with a little effort. If my slider is sticky I can't hold the rig hard enough to slide the hitch.
I had a full on petal to the floor moment with my previous 5ver on I90. Semi locked up his brakes, I was far enough behind I could have stopped without a trailer, so it wasn't like I was tailgating. I could feel the trailer pushing me. It was a good thing there was plenty of paved shoulder cause it pushed me right up to his cab. I felt no trailer brakes.
(Really sorry for hijacking your thread Rock
)
I guess I need to tell more of my long story.
I had to take my SOB in for warranty work back to the factory (the funny part is it was Dalengale from this forum)
It is 7 hours away from me. I took it there with my 2009 f350 with a built in controller set at 7. Perfect braking.
I had to leave it there for 3 months (Dale works slow LOL!)
During this 3 months (2011) I bought my 2012 (and Dale retired from the company)
This is the important part of the story...I came back with a brand new truck to pick up my old trailer that just had brand new axels and brakes installed.
When I went to pick the trailer up it was getting close to 5pm, I got a personal factory tour, then went to hook up my trailer with the new brakes, amongst a bunch of other repairs. One of them involved welding at the front.
So after I hooked up, the guy at the factory took off, and I pulled out with my controller at 7, just like my last 2 f350's. Why would it be any different?
Tested the brakes and I had REALLY bad brakes.
I just figured they were out of adjustment. The guy was gone, there was nothing I could do, so I drove home carefully set at 10.
When I got home I took the trailer to a trailer shop and told them what went down and to adjust the brakes. He did and said they weren't out of adjustment.
So I called the guy at the 5ver factory and told him the story and he UPS'd me another set of brand new Lippert backing plates.
Took my trailer back to the trailer shop. He said he would take the Lippert brakes in exchange for his Dexters, because he deals with Dexter.
All done.. Still no change.
He checked all the wiring. Thought maybe the front to axel wire wasn't good, because (if your paying attention to this long story) I had some welding done on the front frame, and maybe damaged the wire. So he pulled a new 10ga back and still no change.
Took the brakes apart again, burnished, cleaned...still no change.
One thing he didn't do is hook up another truck to test it.
Off I went, he didn't charge me a dime.
I went to Ford under warranty ...they blew me off.
I couldn't figure it out.
Drove like that for 5 years. They got a little better over time from getting worked in, but far from me ever setting my controller at 7 again.
After the close call with the semi, I had had enough and figured somethings wrong with the trailer, because Ford told me nothing's wrong with the controller.
I traded the SOB in last August and drove the NorthPoint off the lot.. Guess what POOR BRAKES. Exactly the same braking. Maybe a hair better.
I got the dealer to take them apart twice..the second time was to burnish and clean the drums.
Still no better.
I went back to Ford AGAIN!
Out of warranty, they aren't looking at a thing unless I pay. I told the service manager the story, he says yep, that how the brakes work. Like I'm an idiot.
He said he would ask Ford engineering if there are any known issues. He never called me back. He doesn't return my calls.
I'm done with those idiots, they don't know how a controller is suppose to work anyway.
I want to talk to a Ford engineer myself, Ford cust service won't let me..I've complained in on going Ford brake controller threads, that have no solution, and get replies from Ford customer service forum watchers and they say they will look into it until they see my serial number is Canadian and that's the end of that, they can't help Canadians.
There is more to the story, I've left out bits, but I'm sure this wasn't an easy read or really all that interesting.
Thanks for helping though!