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Trailer brake tech, spinoff from Tow Rig thread
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<blockquote data-quote="patooyee" data-source="post: 492637" data-attributes="member: 483"><p>Bringing this back to the top because I want to rescind my Tekonsha P3 recommendation.</p><p></p><p>Lately my P3 has been giving me lots of issues. First it started giving me random braking. I could drive for 3 hours and have almost zero brakes and then, without changing any settings, it would start locking the tires up. Then an hour later it would go back to almost nothing. Now lately it has started flashing a red warning screen that says, "Short to battery, no brakes." It will flash it when there is no trailer hooked up or when there is one, doesn't matter. When it does this it will not let me exit the screen to adjust the brakes. But it will actually brake.</p><p></p><p>I'm pretty anal about my tow rig wiring. All of the connections are soldered and heat-shrunk and then neatly tied up using wire ties and OEM-style fabric tape. I hard-wired a mute button into my dash for the radar detector because I didn't like how their remote silencer button looked / mounted. So I go into this trouble shooting process feeling pretty confident about my install. I called their help line and got through to a tech guy who was immediately deliberately too nonchalant about it. He did his best to try to help me but I got this feeling like he was just tired of hearing about this issue and was just doing obligatory, generic trouble-shooting with me, going through the motions. He tells me to check all my connectors for dirt and moisture, etc. Blah blah blah. I've already done it once but do it all again. My next option is to start tearing apart OEM wire looms to find an abraded wire or something. He ends up transferring me through to a senior level tech who is giving me all the same generic info robotically, like he too is tired of dealing with this issue. He is able to give me some additional info though. The controller monitors the blue brake wire for voltage other than what it is giving it. Any delta of .3mV will trigger the code that I am seeing. He admits that the P3 has an issue though in that sometimes once it triggers a code it will not self-clear once the condition is cleared. To get it to clear they recommend unplugging it and plugging it back in. So basically they're saying it could be telling you there is a problem when there isn't. I'm thinking .3mV is a pretty fricken tiny amount of voltage, too. I mean, I can generate .3mV by rubbing my hands together in a dry room! So once I found this out and considered how nonchalant they were being with me I decided to Google it. It turns out that THOUSANDS of people are having this issue on all makes and models of trucks. People are calling Tekonsha and following the same nonchalant obligatory trouble-shooting prescribed by the tech guys and in so doing tearing their ****ing trucks apart! One guy removed the bed of the truck to get at some wires that were mounted between it and the cab just to check for abrasions! Virtually <u>no one</u> has solved their issue.</p><p></p><p>So now I'm not sure if I want to spend the time tearing my wiring harnesses apart looking for a ghost. I asked the tech guys if they had ever seen this before and they were like, "NO, NO! NEVER!" HOW CAN YOU NOT HAVE SEEN IT BEFORE! THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE ON THE INTERNET ARE SAYING THEY'VE TALKED TO YOU ABOUT IT!</p><p></p><p>A) I feel like this is a known issue that Tekonsha does not want to address because it would be expensive for them.</p><p>B) .3mV is fricken miniscule. Why does that amount even matter? Why bother running a diagnostic test with such a small margin for success?</p><p>C) If you ARE going to trigger a code every time the controller sees +.3mV, you need to make damn sure that that code is going to go away once its back to 0mV.</p><p>D) It pisses me off that they would prefer I tear my entire truck apart searching for something that probably doesn't even exist than admit that their controller may have an issue that they know about.</p><p>E) It pisses me off that they would waste BOTH of our time jerking off when they know what the real problem is.</p><p></p><p>I'm going to go back over every accessible inch of my harness again tomorrow, put dielectric grease in all the connectors just to be safe. But if I don't find anything and it keeps acting up I'm going back to a dirt-simple controller that I know I can trust.</p><p></p><p>I've got to tow 12,000 lbs around this weekend in the rain. Who friggen knows if I'll have brakes or not now!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="patooyee, post: 492637, member: 483"] Bringing this back to the top because I want to rescind my Tekonsha P3 recommendation. Lately my P3 has been giving me lots of issues. First it started giving me random braking. I could drive for 3 hours and have almost zero brakes and then, without changing any settings, it would start locking the tires up. Then an hour later it would go back to almost nothing. Now lately it has started flashing a red warning screen that says, "Short to battery, no brakes." It will flash it when there is no trailer hooked up or when there is one, doesn't matter. When it does this it will not let me exit the screen to adjust the brakes. But it will actually brake. I'm pretty anal about my tow rig wiring. All of the connections are soldered and heat-shrunk and then neatly tied up using wire ties and OEM-style fabric tape. I hard-wired a mute button into my dash for the radar detector because I didn't like how their remote silencer button looked / mounted. So I go into this trouble shooting process feeling pretty confident about my install. I called their help line and got through to a tech guy who was immediately deliberately too nonchalant about it. He did his best to try to help me but I got this feeling like he was just tired of hearing about this issue and was just doing obligatory, generic trouble-shooting with me, going through the motions. He tells me to check all my connectors for dirt and moisture, etc. Blah blah blah. I've already done it once but do it all again. My next option is to start tearing apart OEM wire looms to find an abraded wire or something. He ends up transferring me through to a senior level tech who is giving me all the same generic info robotically, like he too is tired of dealing with this issue. He is able to give me some additional info though. The controller monitors the blue brake wire for voltage other than what it is giving it. Any delta of .3mV will trigger the code that I am seeing. He admits that the P3 has an issue though in that sometimes once it triggers a code it will not self-clear once the condition is cleared. To get it to clear they recommend unplugging it and plugging it back in. So basically they're saying it could be telling you there is a problem when there isn't. I'm thinking .3mV is a pretty fricken tiny amount of voltage, too. I mean, I can generate .3mV by rubbing my hands together in a dry room! So once I found this out and considered how nonchalant they were being with me I decided to Google it. It turns out that THOUSANDS of people are having this issue on all makes and models of trucks. People are calling Tekonsha and following the same nonchalant obligatory trouble-shooting prescribed by the tech guys and in so doing tearing their ****ing trucks apart! One guy removed the bed of the truck to get at some wires that were mounted between it and the cab just to check for abrasions! Virtually [u]no one[/u] has solved their issue. So now I'm not sure if I want to spend the time tearing my wiring harnesses apart looking for a ghost. I asked the tech guys if they had ever seen this before and they were like, "NO, NO! NEVER!" HOW CAN YOU NOT HAVE SEEN IT BEFORE! THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE ON THE INTERNET ARE SAYING THEY'VE TALKED TO YOU ABOUT IT! A) I feel like this is a known issue that Tekonsha does not want to address because it would be expensive for them. B) .3mV is fricken miniscule. Why does that amount even matter? Why bother running a diagnostic test with such a small margin for success? C) If you ARE going to trigger a code every time the controller sees +.3mV, you need to make damn sure that that code is going to go away once its back to 0mV. D) It pisses me off that they would prefer I tear my entire truck apart searching for something that probably doesn't even exist than admit that their controller may have an issue that they know about. E) It pisses me off that they would waste BOTH of our time jerking off when they know what the real problem is. I'm going to go back over every accessible inch of my harness again tomorrow, put dielectric grease in all the connectors just to be safe. But if I don't find anything and it keeps acting up I'm going back to a dirt-simple controller that I know I can trust. I've got to tow 12,000 lbs around this weekend in the rain. Who friggen knows if I'll have brakes or not now! [/QUOTE]
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