GM Trailer Brake Troubleshooting

Nothing is worse than having your brakes go out. It can result in injury, damaged property or worse. To keep your GM Trailer brakes in great shape, it is important to do occasional checks. If you are already experiencing a problem these troubleshooting techniques can help you figure out what the cause may be. You may want to enlist the help of a friend to help you out with some of these to perform them more accurately.

Instructions

1

Have someone hold in the stop button on your brake controller while you hold a compass three inches from each individual wheel. If the needles swings toward the wheel, your magnets are working.

2

Drive around the block once or twice, hitting the brake as often as possible. Then, get out and use a laser heat sensor on every wheel. Each one should be warmer than the surrounding air, and they should all be between 70 degrees of one another. If any of them are drastically off, you may have an issue with that brake.

3

Use a brake controller with an amperage reading. Push the stop button while parked. It should read 3 amps per brake. So for a two-axle 6 is the optimum reading, while a four-axle should read 12 amps. Anything higher and you may have bare wire touching metal somewhere in your brake system. At 3 amps lower you have one brake not working at all, 6 amps lower means two brakes are out, and so on.