Electric brake controller and tow dolly

[Zeagle63]

Looking for some feedback / advice. I have a 2018 ACE 30.4 which is on a 2017 Ford F-53 Frame. I think I want to get a tow dolly instead of putting a tow package on a car that I intend to replace in a couple of years. Any one know of an electric brake controller that would be essentially plug and play with existing wiring? Any advice on hydraulic surge vs electric brake tow Dolly’s? What little knowledge I have on the subject leads me to believe that legally; the electric brakes met standards in more places? By the way, this forum is pretty awesome, love reading it!

[JamieGeek]

Interesting: as far as standards I don't see how electric would meet more?

Just about every boat trailer has surge brakes (at least all the ones I've seen).

So far we've driven our surge brake equipped dolly through about 10 states without issue.

[be happy]

My ACE had the connection for the plug and play brake controller. Just get one and go. I took electric over surge for the reason, I felt I had alittle more control over the braking issue with elect. and less tong weight on the dolly for moving it around.

[Jegdrum5050]

I have the Acme dolly with surge brakes. Works very well, and 11,000 miles, over mountains etc. never a problem with braking, even when I have to stop fast. Jerry

[Trmisinco]

Just added a Stehl tow dolly with surge breaks, works great, less hassle, happy with purchase

[DenverTransplant]

I have a Tekonsha brake controller that I re-used on my 2017 ACE 30.1. The F-53 has a brake connector harness that was tied up near the parking brake. I bought a wiring adaptor that plugs into the Ford connector and Tekonsha connector. Mounted the brake controller on the lower right of the steering wheel on the dash.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I use an American Car Dolly towing a Mini Cooper S. We originally had the dolly mounted brake controller. However I found this controller to be very sensitive, with a lot of brake grabbing at slow speeds on pavement and wheel lock up on gravel, even when it was set to minimum gain. When entering a campground, I had to get out of the coach and go back and manually turn off the brake controller.

So I removed it and rewired the dolly to bypass it. Now I can adjust sensitivity, or even turn off the controller, from the driver’s seat

[jpmihalk]

We have a Master Tow dolly with surge brakes. No extra steps to connect the electric brake controller. We have towed across the country and back several times with two different towed vehicles. I would prefer surge brakes to an electric controller for both simplicity and ease of setup.

[Zeagle63]

Thank you so much for the helpful input!