Need advice on Hydrualic trailer brakes.

As far as the person who suggested air brakes, think--small trailer, not semi trailer. The costs of air compressor, tanks, safety devices, air brake axels, etc. would be very high. Not to mention you would have to get a CDL license with an airbrake endorsement.

Gooseneck trailers (pickup size) usually use electric or Vaccuum over hyd. brakes. The vac/hyd brakes are more costly, but they are nice and work great. The main cost is in the vaccuum pump that must be installed on the engine. This braking system is basically the a copy of your vehicles braking system. Consisting of a vaccuum assisted master cyliender. Only two hoses lead to the trailer. One is a vaccuum supply, the other is a vaccuum control line that controls the amount of vaccuum.

I hope this helpes

I make no bones about it, I don't like surge brakes at all. If electronic brakes are properly hooked up and adjusted, it the next best thing to air brakes because the operation is very similar and you can maintain a better control over the entire vehicle combination. No matter what the combination of vehicle, all brakes should apply evenly and at the same time for best control. This is why the old trolly brake handles have been removed from the semi tractors. The old belief that applying the trailer only brakes in slick conditions resulted in far more wrecks than they avoided. Surge brakes will cause the application of the trailer only brakes many times allowing it to slide out of control behind the tow vehicle. Another problem is on hills. If you let off the throttle and the trailer is pushing, the brakes are riding, on a long downhill grade, the brakes will overheat and fade out. Should you need to stop in a hurry, you have only the tow vehicle brakes to try and hold back the combined weight of everything.

If you doubt what I said about even application of all brakes, pick up a copy of the CDL handbook at your local drivers testing center and read the section on braking, especially down hill control. Good info every driver should know and use.

One other thing I especially like about a surge brake is that you will never have the trailer shove you. With electric brakes, unless you actuate them either by the brake pedal or the lever, you can have the trailer shoving you along. Very nasty in the hills with a heavy trailer. Especially down hill in the rain.

For simple hook up and go, the surge brake is superior, in my opinion.

Electric brakes can be done cost effective if you are not planning on dragging more than one trailer at a time. You said you have 3 tow vehicles which is not a problem if you only drive one at a time.

If you get a good electronic controller, you need only buy one controller and two extra wire harnesses. You put the harnesses in each vehicle the exact same way but instead of hard wiring the controller to the harness, you put a quick disconnect plug between the harness and controller. This way you can take the expensive controller from one vehicle and plug it into any of the other two as needed.

Personally, I prefer air brakes but for smaller trialers, electric are the way to go. I would also suggest you check local DOT laws as well for the size/weight of the trailer before you do anything else.

I happen to have a new in box Voyager controller and one wire harness on hand that I got for a job and did not use. I was about to put it up on ebay but if you're interested, email me.