A recent tow-test threw-up the need for portable electronic brake controllers (EBC). We look at three different types and ask which electronic brake controller is best for you? We don’t always get what we want! When we book press cars,…
We don’t always get what we want! When we book press cars, it’s not as easy as you think to grab a car with a full towing set-up installed. A towbar is one thing but the brake controller is another, because not all car companies see the justification for such a niche product! Quite. Our recent swag of Germanic hardware for our technology tow-test proved a case in point. While the Audi SQ7 had a Redarc Tow-Pro Elite V3 unit fitted, the Porsche E-Hybrid and Volkswagen Touareg had no EBCs. There are now two plug-and-play options on the market that allow you to run electric brakes without permanently installing a unit in your vehicle, and we’ve tried them both out on test. Click here to read the tow-test.
The Audi’s permanent Redarc unit is hard-wired to the car battery, with a controller knob fitted on the right side of the steering column. It has a wire feed to the brake switch or brake light to activate and another wire to the trailer plug at the back of the car to activate the trailer brakes. This simple set up-and-forget brake controller we’re all familiar with just requires you plug in the trailer plug to the vehicle and you’re good to go. The Redarc kit costs $360 and about $300-$500 for installation depending on your vehicle.
The Elecbrakes EBC unit consists a small black box that you cable-tie (or for permanent trailer installation) screw in place on the caravan’s A-frame with supplied screws. The optional plug-and-play loom plugs into the trailer plug at one end and the vehicle at the other. The system is powered by the vehicle-to-trailer wiring and the tow vehicle’s lights circuit (so lights need to be turned on). The unit is controlled by a (free) Smartphone app or an optional wireless Elecbrakes controller. The unit is $649 with a pigtail wiring loom to hard-wire into the van or a plug-and-play harness for $70 extra and the optional controller is $150.
The Electric Brakes Australia Portable Electric Brake Controller is basically a 5.5-metre long loom you’d get in a hard-wired unit except with adaptors fitted to allow power from a 12v aux port in the vehicle. Similarly to the Elecbrakes unit, the trailer plugs adapt to vehicle and van plugs. A seven-pin flat loom (12-flat or large-seven-round are also available) costs $249 if you have an EBC unit already or an extra $90 for a Tekonsha Primus iQ or $190 for a Tekonsha P3 Prodigy.
THE PRACTICALITIES
The Redarc unit is the simplest to use. All you need to worry about is to set braking level between one and 10 on the dial and choose whether you use proportional or user set-up braking mode, the latter being useful off-road where you want consistent braking rather than proportional.
Both the Elecbrakes and EBA units can be easily swapped between tow vehicles and (depending on options you choose for each and cost of install if you have a permanent set-up) can work out a bit cheaper than a permanent EBC. The Elecbrakes system is the most sophisticated as you can adjust initial braking force level and has five braking programs you can pre-load, allowing you to swap between them according to conditions. You can also adjust the reversing braking level.
While both the Elecbrakes and EBA units worked seamlessly on test, the downsides are that you have to remember to have the vehicle lights switched on for the Elecbrakes unit and with the EBA loom, be conscious of where it is routed at the back of the vehicle. If you open the tailgate a lot on a wagon, for example, it can eventually weaken the wiring at that pinch point. Both Elecbrakes and EBC units rely more than usual on good pin connectivity at the plugs; often this is the weakest point of any trailer wiring, and this is amplified here with the additional plugs involved.
More information:
For REDARC click here
For Elecbrakes click here
For Electric Brakes Australia click here
