Trailer brake not working

[Canuqq]

Any updates on this issue or other solutions? I‘m having the same problem with my 2021 F150 Hybrid. I picked up my 2021 Jayco Eagle HT camper last night and had the same problem; ”no trailer detected” and no trailer brakes when I squeezed the brake controller. Reconnected harness multiple times, turned off truck, connected the battery (aka has battery disconnect switch), etc, but still nothing. Note the camper running, brake and turn signal lights all work. I’ll try conductive grease, but both the trailer and camper are fairly new. I need to check camper side too, I guess (trailer brake fuse?)

Please note, I also had problem on my last trip after a major rough road that my F150 truck kept ”chiming“ and indicated left trailer light was bad EVERYTIME I hit the brakes or used my left turn signal. i checked the lights and they were fine, but still kept getting the same indication. Only after I stopped and turned the truck off/on did it reset and say everything was ok with trailer lights (until the next bumpy road). It should reset without doing that.

I have the same truck and same problem. I connect my 31' travel trailer to my F150 Platinum Hybrid and the truck recognizes the trailer exactly as it should. Except that when I adjust the gain or squeeze the levers to apply the trailer brakes with the IBC, there is a message on the screen that says "no trailer". It's like the truck knows there is a trailer attached but the brake controller thinks there isn't!

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[DW2020]

I had the same problem this past weekend. 2021 KR Hybrid, Rockwood MiniLite trailer. Lights were working fine, trailer brakes nonfunctional with a “no-trailer” message on testing the trailer brakes.

I was leaving a campground, stuck in the mountains 3 hrs from home.

I managed to get it working by really cleaning the ground and brake pins on the trailer plug. Dish soap and water over and over, rubbed a paper towel on the contacts over and over with a little screwdriver. When the paper towel was coming back absolutely clean, the truck recognized the trailer brakes again. I tested them with the squeeze a few times and they were working.

My working hypothesis is that the truck brake controller is very sensitive to seeing an appropriate resistance on the trailer brake wiring. So too much gunk=too much resistance, truck doesn’t see the trailer brakes.

My plan is to further clean with contact cleaner and try it dry and clean (no grease etc)….will see what happens.

 

[DVD]

Any updates on this issue or other solutions? I‘m having the same problem with my 2021 F150 Hybrid. I picked up my 2021 Jayco Eagle HT camper last night and had the same problem; ”no trailer detected” and no trailer brakes when I squeezed the brake controller. Reconnected harness multiple times, turned off truck, connected the battery (aka has battery disconnect switch), etc, but still nothing. Note the camper running, brake and turn signal lights all work. I’ll try conductive grease, but both the trailer and camper are fairly new. I need to check camper side too, I guess (trailer brake fuse?)

Please note, I also had problem on my last trip after a major rough road that my F150 truck kept ”chiming“ and indicated left trailer light was bad EVERYTIME I hit the brakes or used my left turn signal. i checked the lights and they were fine, but still kept getting the same indication. Only after I stopped and turned the truck off/on did it reset and say everything was ok with trailer lights (until the next bumpy road). It should reset without doing that.

Uodate: I found another F150 thread that indicated the truck has to be off when you connect the trailer wiring harness. Once connected, then turn on the truck and it will reset. It worked for me, but of course I removed and connected the wire harness again, so maybe better connection too (aka multiple issues happening). The trailer battery was charged more too. Who knows. It should be smarter than that though.

 

[chrisp993]

OK, so include me as having this problem. I haven't figured out a solution - spent several hours thinking my trailer was at fault, crawling around under it, checking wiring etc. Also cleaned my trailer connector with electrical contact cleaner and (gently) with some 2500 grit wet/dry wrapped around a zip tie. Started driving trailer back to storage and trailer brakes / manual controller were working OK, then within a mile they stopped working but instrument panel indication was normal, then within another mile or so started getting the "no trailer attached" message when I squeezed the brake controller. Throughout, the trailer lights etc. showed OK and the truck towing info showed the lights as OK - but the brake controller decided there's no trailer

Truck is heading to dealer on Monday - I hope to get a solution to this soon as (a) I need to tow my enclosed car trailer but (b) really can't use my truck to do this - randomly losing trailer brakes with consequent large increase in stopping distance is a massive safety issue ? And I live in the flat midwest - having this happen in the mountains would be an even bigger deal!

 

[Chris McN]

I've had the same issue over and over. '21 F150 towing a new Airstream. Di-electric grease seemed to be the answer but then one day no matter what I did (tweak the connector blades, add grease, clean...) the trailer brakes would not work.

I had the Airstream dealer plug the trailer's 7-way into a truck "simulator" and everything worked fine on the trailer side (brakes, turn signals, brake lights). I took the truck to my Ford dealer and they tested the truck's 7-way plug with their trailer "simulator" and everything tested fine.

Two things helped:

1. the Ford shop did a two hour upgrade of some system software to the most current version.
2. I started making sure that the truck is off when I plug in the trailer. The shop foreman said this is the best practice and that having the truck running could cause weird behavior.

I just got back from a week long trip with truck/trailer and the brakes functioned perfectly.

The shop foreman also said that he had another customer with the exactly the same problem and that Ford is aware of the problem. He thought there would be an OTA update later this year to fix it.

Chris

 

[Antimatter]

Thank you to the previous posters. We were experiencing this also. Trailer was connected and showing up on the dashboard. Brake controller was showing connected sometimes. Other times nothing we did seemed to get the trailer brakes to show the trailer as connected. We tried unplugging and plugging back in with mixed results. We tried turning off everything and restarting the truck and then reconnecting and this did not seem to make a difference.
We then got some spray on cleaner at the hardware store and cleaned the 7 pin on the trailer and the truck. Bingo! Worked like a charm. (Cleaner was Gunk brand electric motor contact cleaner.)

Would also add that using the truck and 10 speed manual downshifting along with patient driving and light traffic did allow for us to drive into the mountains in safely before we figured this out. Obviously not ideal as this didn’t have the extra safely factor that using and having available the brake controller gives you. Turns out it was good we had practiced this skill.

Update: well, today brake controller working fine first part of the trip and then went out.

We hadn’t even stopped driving at all, literally the same trip.

But it doesn’t say no trailer now on the brake controller. We just get no action if the trailer brake button is squeezed.

This day’s drive was through the Eisenhower tunnel on I 70 into Denver. Brake controller worked fine before and after the tunnel. (which was good). Then was inactive on the edge of Denver during that descent. So we had to put on the hazards and get down into about 3rd gear Also-now it does NOT say no trailer detected on the trailer brake controller --it just doesn't work/engage. The week before (before the cleaner) when we first had the problem, the trailer brake controller did not say the trailer was attached. Not sure if there are multiple issues going on now.

We also have an airstream trailer. Previous truck was a Tundra with an aftermarket wired brake controller and we had no problems with the trailer brakes with that setup.

 

[chrisp993]

So, I went back to the trailer to check again today (prior to heading to dealer on Monday) and now the trailer brakes seem to be working whether the trailer is plugged in when truck is off/on etc. I couldn't make the problem appear ....

I did notice something - there isn't much "feel" in whether the connector pins are engaged with the plug at all and in fact it's possible to insert the trailer plug into the truck connector and engage the locking "latch" without the connector really being fully plugged in - it will still have some play which I would assume mean the truck-side male connector pins are not fully inserted into the trailer-side female plug. To fully connect the trailer plug requires some force and wiggling the plug!

I've attached some pictures below which show what I mean .... notice the different positions of the locking "latch" lid on the end of the trailer plug and also the difference in gap between trailer plug and truck connector.

Anyone else have this same thing? If your trailer brakes don't work, try *really* pushing the connector home so that it's solidly connected? I've never had this problem before on any truck/trailer combo. Seems to me like the dimensions on the truck-side connector and the "latch" may be poorly designed - they allow the plug to feel like its inserted, and the latch to engage without the truck-side pins being fully captured by the trailer-side?

 

[wmwalker]

Add one more. Just happened today. Second time for us. Hybrid towing a 2021 Outdoors RV 26KVS. We stopped and tried all the magic tricks. The controller seemed to come back online (didn’t say “No Trailer”) but squeezing the control did nothing. Heading to Glacier NP. Hopefully we will make it to our destination alive and then the truck will head to the dealer.

 

[Antimatter]

An added note about trailering with the truck in hilly areas.
On our trip back between Denver and Kansas City we had cleaned the 7 pin and plug with the cleaner, and the trailer brakes worked OK the entire day.

Want to add that during the travel between Denver/Castle Rock and Limon, husband had the truck on cruise control. He noticed that the the cruise control seemed to automatically downshift to keep the trailer at the set speed--same as when he had been doing it manually. It was somewhat hilly, and he was surprised by this. RPMs were prefect.

Not to take this thread off-track, but does is the truck smart enough to do this, or was this just a fluke?

 

[Hullguy]

Has anyone checked the connection to the trailer plug underneath and behind the bumper?

 

[chrisp993]

Has anyone checked the connection to the trailer plug underneath and behind the bumper?

I took a look, wondering if maybe there was a shaky ground etc. that might be at fault - however I found the connector went back into a bundled harness, I didn't trace this any further.

 

[chrisp993]

Not to take this thread off-track, but does is the truck smart enough to do this, or was this just a fluke?

I believe in Tow/Haul mode the truck will downshift as you described - not sure about Normal mode? Which mode were you in?

 

[Antimatter]

I believe in Tow/Haul mode the truck will downshift as you described - not sure about Normal mode? Which mode were you in?

Yes we were in Tow/Haul mode.

We continue to be impressed at all of the little things that make the new F150 a much better tow vehicle than our previous 2014 Tundra.
There's really no comparison at how much better the F150 is for towing and traveling with our trailer.

 

[Just Me]

I had the same issue. It wasn’t the truck, it was a loose wire crimp connection to the trailer brake where it connects to the brake wiring at the trailer wheel. Found it by jacking up the trailer, spinning the wheel and then squeezing the trailer brake switch in the truck. One wheel didn’t lock up. Changed out wire connections on both wheels. Warning message cleared and brakes work. The Ford warning message let me know of a problem on a new trailer I never would have found otherwise. All good now.

 

[chrisp993]

I had the same issue. It wasn’t the truck, it was a loose wire crimp connection to the trailer brake where it connects to the brake wiring at the trailer wheel. Found it by jacking up the trailer, spinning the wheel and then squeezing the trailer brake switch in the truck. One wheel didn’t lock up. Changed out wire connections on both wheels. Warning message cleared and brakes work. The Ford warning message let me know of a problem on a new trailer I never would have found otherwise. All good now.

In my case (a) I didn't have a problem with this 2 year old trailer and my old F150 (b) I've checked the wiring for anything obvious but (c) the best check is to (when stationary!) pull the pin on the safety cable - this completes the circuit for the battery powered breakway box which energizes the electric brake circuit with ~ 12v and verifies the trailer brakes are working as it locks the trailer wheels. This emergency circuit ties in to the brake circuit at the main junction box underneath the trailer - just one 6' wire from this to the truck/trailer plug so I've also verified continuity of this wire to the plug .....

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