surge brakes???

Hey folks,
Just curious. Are surge brakes not common on gtrailers with you folks? Just wondering because of the debates and ???'s on tow vehicle sizes. Here, anything over 1500 pounds gross weight has to have surgew brakes. Makes it nice. We pull a 2 ton horse trailer with the wife's Kia sorento and you don't even know it's there. On another note, almost every agriculture wagon has them also. Makes pulling a 6 ton wagon with a 26HP tractor possible (going down hill)...

Dave

I have a trailer that has them, never had a
problem other than a rusted brake line. Have
owned for 12 years or so, I wouldn't have
anything else....

rla

They are common on rental trailers, but about half the time they don't seem to work. They are hard to test with an empty trailer and when you get the tractor on it's too late! Also on ice they are not efective so most privately owned trailers have electric brakes.

Forgot to mention that they are very common on larger boat trailers, survive being backed under water much better than electric. Also not many boat trailers are used when the roads are icy.

About the only surge brakes around in Ohio belong to u-hall trailer rental so they do not have to huck up a brake controler to every vehical they rent a trailer for. I have electric brakes all around on camper and implement trailer but I think it is 2,500 pounds empty till you have to have them. What surge brages that were around you had to before you could back up get out of the vehical and go back to the trailer hitch and install a pin so that you could back up without then locking sollid as soon as you put the tow unit in reverce and start to move as the brakes think you are trying to stop and the harder you try to push the harder they will lock up. John Deere years ago built there service trailers like that, friend has one. Never had a u-haull trailer but think you still have to lock them out to back up. A very big safty problem as if you would haven't got stoped quite in time at a intersection and you had to quickley back up to keep from getting hit you could not do it. Have heard that some west coast states will not alow surge brakes at anytime on some of the mountain roads, never been there so I cannot verify.

Here in the USA, they do not like surge brakes. Allowed on rental trailers and such, but electric or better are much encouraged. So you don't see them much.

Trailers under 3000# don't need brakes.

Most of the USA has different rules for farm equipment, left over from the 1940s & 50s. Each state might have slightly different rules, but here in the midwest anyhow if you are driving under 30mph or have a large vehicle in front of the trailer and seem to be in control you are generally left alone. But this can be different state to state. I see 350-400 bu gravity wagons (25,000 lbs or so...) behind pickups without any brakes or legal issues.

Of late the national DOT is looking to make this more uniform, more equally applied, and more tax revenue for themselves. There are currently extra rules for licenced vehicles over 26,000# in my state but combine, gravity wagon, anything that doesn't go over 30 mph can totally ignore. The national DOT is considering strong rules for anything over 10,000# including the off-road vehicles.

This will greatly increase food costs, and clamp down on the small farms, even horse & truck farms like the sweet corn patches. But folks don't realize that yet, and won't until it's too late....

--->Paul

(quoted from post at 05:24:34 07/13/11) About the only surge brakes around in Ohio belong to u-hall trailer rental so they do not have to huck up a brake controler to every vehical they rent a trailer for. I have electric brakes all around on camper and implement trailer but I think it is 2,500 pounds empty till you have to have them. What surge brages that were around you had to before you could back up get out of the vehical and go back to the trailer hitch and install a pin so that you could back up without then locking sollid as soon as you put the tow unit in reverce and start to move as the brakes think you are trying to stop and the harder you try to push the harder they will lock up. John Deere years ago built there service trailers like that, friend has one. Never had a u-haull trailer but think you still have to lock them out to back up. A very big safty problem as if you would haven't got stoped quite in time at a intersection and you had to quickley back up to keep from getting hit you could not do it. Have heard that some west coast states will not alow surge brakes at anytime on some of the mountain roads, never been there so I cannot verify.

Click to expand...

Had a horse trailer that you had to do that to. We won't go there though...... Liiiiiiiiiiiiiiitle embarrassing....

Newer stuff is a little smarter. Kinda like you can lean forward with your seatbelt fastened, but can't lunge forward.

Dave

As others have said surge brakes aren't real common but they do exist.
There are two main reasons they aren't so common.
1) Once they start osscellating it is really hard to get it stopped.
2) They have to be pinned to back up.

They used to be common on new fertlizer spreaders, worked the 1st time and were froze up after that.

Well my opinion is: Surge Brakes are very common on rental trailers,some car and enclosed trailers,if you see a Motor Home and they are pulling a car with the drive wheels up on a tow dolly most likely the tow dolly ,if it has brakes at all,are surge brakes. Electric brakes on a tow dolly is a big maintenance problem.With surge brakes ,treat them just as your car.Keep in adjustment,keep the mechanism clean and fluid level kept ok and they work good I think,my tow dolly does any way.We went on a 1739 mile trip from Az. to Colorado in June and took the tow dolly with our "05 Impala on it and the surge brakes worked just as they should.More states are requiring brakes on tow dollys all the time so surge brakes are a no brainer I think. Probably others on here will disagree ,but who cares? My tow dolly is a Master Tow and it is 2 years old.

We used to have them on trailers at work years ago but all now have electric. I like being able to turn them up when in traffic and might need to stop in a hurry.

Have them on my boat trailer and like them. If you keep the coupler lubricated the oscillation is minimal. Just pump the tow vehicle brakes once to stop it if it happens. The only time I have to pin mine is if backing up on a very steep incline.

(quoted from post at 05:06:17 07/13/11) Hey folks,
Just curious. Are surge brakes not common on gtrailers with you folks? Just wondering because of the debates and ???'s on tow vehicle sizes. Here, anything over 1500 pounds gross weight has to have surgew brakes. Makes it nice. We pull a 2 ton horse trailer with the wife's Kia sorento and you don't even know it's there. On another note, almost every agriculture wagon has them also. Makes pulling a 6 ton wagon with a 26HP tractor possible (going down hill)...

Dave

Click to expand...

I've towed trailers with either type of brakes and couldn't tell the difference one from the other. Surge brakes are very common on rentals. Also common on boat trailers because elec.brakes don't take kindly to water.
As far as not being effective on ice,thats the fault of the operater and the tires.

My two notes (cents) on surge brakes.
1) Backing up is not a problem if the trailer surge brake system is equipped with a backing device. This device detects the sense of rotation of the wheels and inhibits the surge brake while reversing.
2) Living in The Netherlands, I very well know that most car trailers in Europe have surge brakes and so does our trailer home. The MAJOR drawback of surge brakes over electric is that going down hill the trailer brakes are applied even when the tow vehicles brakes aren't. A friend of ours travelled down a long (two miles or more) mountain slope in Switzerland and his trailer brakes and even the wheel bearings were toast. I prefer the finer control of electric brakes. A plus of surge brakes is that they are robust and require very little maintenance.

I spent 2007/2008 towing for hire everything under the sun, boats, campers, every kind of trailer. My experience was that about half the surge brakes were inoperable. Most of those didn't work at all, and the others were real sticky, wouldn't do anything then SLAM, they came on too strong.

Someone said they don't require a lot of maintenance, but it seems they must. I'm not an expert, but give me electric everytime. Adjustability on the fly is nice, especially crossing the Rockies.