Thor Forums

[FW28z]

I also have the RViBrake2. Overall it is a good unit, but it has one serious flaw (which cost me $1,000 in vehicle repairs).

The cylinder adjustment is on a ratcheting system. If you end up depressing the brake manually with it connected (say you start your car at a rest stop, etc. to recharge the battery), you can cause the brakes to lock up.

That is what I did - and ended up dragging the brakes for 80 miles and put $1,000 damage on the tow vehicle.

If you have to start the vehicle, you must remove - then re-install the brake system.

To be fair, there is a warning in the instructions about not doing this and the proper procedure, and I failed to heed this advice.

However, when I did it, it was raining, we were in a rush, I was in a lot of pain from tendinitis, and of course, that is when bad things happen. Not really making an excuse as much as revealing that things can happen to cause you to lose track of what you are doing.

My thoughts are that by simply redesigning the system to add a cylinder lock to prevent the cylinder from self-adjusting, they would prevent this occurance. So while the unit overall is good, it could be better. So I'll just present this as a caveat that you should have a checklist or something to remind yourself, which is what I did after the damage to the vehicle.

The reason I call this a flaw is a simple modification would prevent such occurance. All that would be needed is a thumbscrew to tighten the cylinder on the rack so it could not re-adjust itself from slight movement of the brake pedal.


RViBrake also makes a towed vehicle battery charger that uses 12V from the trailer light connector (i.e. motorhome) to trickle charge the battery while driving. You can also connect a solar charger, but you might need a fairly big one to keep up with the drain on the battery.

Having said that, I have towed the vehicle for up to 5 hours (without using the toad charger) and not significantly draining the toad battery. Most of this was highway driving, which means the brakes were not used a lot, so the type of terrain will certainly impact how long the towed vehicle battery remains charged.

So my advice is to make up a checklist of everything you need to do when setting up, what things to double check, and so on. That is what I finally did. I had it laminated at the local office supply store for a buck or two, and it stays in the towing bag with everything else (safety cables, towing pins, etc).