About to pull the trigger on a trailer. Probably will go with a Trailex

I am undecided about brake choice. What are the advantages/disadvantages of electric-vs-surge brakes?

Will be pulling with an F150.

Thanks for the info!

 

Can't back up with surge brakes. Electic brakes can be dialed in to your likeing. I.e. more or less trailer brake depending on conditions, weight on trailer and/or type of tow vehicle.

 

My trailex with surge brakes backs up fine. ?

 

surge brakes for water craft trailers (can be submerged). they don't brake going backwards; its your tow vehicle doing the braking.

electric brakes makes more sense for a car hauler... make sure you have it on all wheels.

 

what are surge brakes and hydraulic brakes?

 

Go electric with a good controller, such as the Tekonsha. I like the fact that I can dial in the amout of trailer brake that I want. In addition, there are brake boost functions that are very useful when you hit stop and go traffic (mine gets a workout on I85 heading to Road Atlanta). The boost is a quick way to add addition trailer braking.

I'm happy with this setup, and my rig is similar to yours (F150 towing a 17' featherlite).

 

Surge brakes suck. Even the non-surge hydraulic brakes suck...and they're unnecessarily complicated.

Ever had a situation where the trailer starts to wig-wag, or you start to jack-knife due to wet etc ? You can't do ANYTHING about it with surge or hydraulic systems. With electric brakes, you can manually grab the activation bar on the brake controller and get some trailer brakes, even before you get tow-vehicle brakes. If you've never had to do this, you haven't 'trailered' much.

But that's just my opinion.

 

sorry, should have been more specific. I could not back mine into my driveway due to a small incline that caused the brakes to lock.

 

modern weight distributing hitches with anti-sway bars and smart brake controller (like the tenkonsha prodigy) can eliminate the swaying and jack-knife so that you may never ever experience that (under normal towing conditions that is)...

 

+1. been there, done that.

 

Go with electrics. One less hydraulic system to maintain, flush, bleed...
An advantage of surge is that its self-contained -- no extra wiring is needed for the tow vehicle. But an electric brake controller is pretty easy to wire in, and as people have said, its nice to have the adjustability at your fingertips.

 

Too much faith in technology.

Weight-distributing hitches won't fix those problems, nor will any minimal brains in the brake controller. I'm a big fan of Tekonsha controllers, and they won't even come close to fixing a jack-knife/traction-related problem, nor will sway controls or equalizer bars.

250K+++ miles pulling race cars...been there, done that.

 

I rented a flatbed with surge brakes a while back. It was about 5k GVW with the car. I was towing it about 250 miles behind my Ford F350 PSD. What a scary deal that was even with such low weight and a beefy tow vehicle. The trailer would want to wag on braking and I could 'feel' the hitch taking the brunt of the braking. I played with the tongue weight, but it didn't help much.

Normally I tow with electric brakes and use the Tekonsha Prodigy. From now on, thats the only way I will tow.

I suggest purchasing the electric brakes, and the Prodigy controller, and make sure you have a proper tow vehicle where your under GCVW by a good amount when fully loaded. You will thank yourself and will sleep well at night.

 

true, not disagreeing with you on any points. just saying that the modern setups have gone a long way and far safer then the old setups. i've towed tons of miles too in many different configs (tag, goose, enclosed, 44'+, doublestacker, etc)

weight distribution keeps the tow vehicle in front flat so it still has steering and full braking capabalities. the sway bars take on sway load. the brake controllers have gyros to help them predict how much force to send to the trailer's brakes.
under normal towing conditions, these measures should be enough to prevent lost of traction in the rear and stop the swaying before it jack-knives.

 

You can do something! Hit the gas!