“Trailer not connected “

Fogy2074 · Apr 27, 2023

Hello all,
just purchased my first Ram 1500 classic. I tow a boat and trailer with EOH disc brakes. Installed a brake contoller and programmed by Ram.
The truck alway shows trailer disconnected when hooked up to my boat trailer. However the trailer works perfectly with other vehicles and my Ram works fine with other electric brake systems. all the light work.
I have changed the breakaway release switch, put on a new 7pin trailer plug, cleaned and reinstalled the ground.
Bottom line… it works with other electric trailers except mine and my boat trailer EOH actuator works with other vehicles.
I don’t know what to do. Took it to a shop with testing lights and everything worked perfectly. My last option is to purchase a plug and play harness with and aftermarket break controller. any thoughts would be greatly appreciated

Stavinksi · Apr 27, 2023

This happened once for me towing my car hauler. I am not sure the brake system in my trailer, but the trailer sense for blind spot monitoring was correctly detecting the 20 ft trailer and lights were working as you state, but no gain on the electric brakes was showing. As I was not going far and the trailer empty at the time, I didn’t worry about it and I don’t know if it was actually braking the trailer or not. The next time I started the truck it was doing what I expected. Has not happened since.

BossHogg · Apr 27, 2023

Fogy2074 said:
Hello all,
just purchased my first Ram 1500 classic. I tow a boat and trailer with EOH disc brakes. Installed a brake contoller and programmed by Ram.
The truck alway shows trailer disconnected when hooked up to my boat trailer. However the trailer works perfectly with other vehicles and my Ram works fine with other electric brake systems. all the light work.
I have changed the breakaway release switch, put on a new 7pin trailer plug, cleaned and reinstalled the ground.
Bottom line… it works with other electric trailers except mine and my boat trailer EOH actuator works with other vehicles.
I don’t know what to do. Took it to a shop with testing lights and everything worked perfectly. My last option is to purchase a plug and play harness with and aftermarket break controller. any thoughts would be greatly appreciated

The trailer brake controller sends a brief pulse periodically and it expects to see a small amount of current draw. If it sees that it assumes a trailer with electric brakes is connected.

The only thing I can think of is the EOC system on your boat trailer does not act fast enough when it sees power to start pulling a current thus it goes undetected.

The strange part is RAM's trailer brake controller is not unique, this is how most modern brake controllers detect a trailer.

I'm assuming the truck can control all trailer lights proving you have a good connection. Did you go into the menu system for the brake controller and select EOH?

Fogy2074 · Apr 27, 2023

Thank you for your response. I did set the brakes to EOH on every different trailer setting. Interestingly, whe n the trailer is physically connected and I press the brakes, I can hear a buzz from the brake controller but nothing else happens.
I am thinking my only option is to buy a aftermarket brake controller with a plug and play for the vehicle. That’s what I had on my old vehicle and it worked fine.
I fear if I go back to the dealer they will just say it is fine

pacofortacos · Apr 27, 2023

Which EOH kit do you have?

Factory kit works fine on my EOH boat trailer but it is a little bit older (2016) truck.

pacofortacos · Apr 27, 2023

How about if you don't set it to EOH but just disk brakes instead?

Maybe just a bad controller.

coobie · Apr 28, 2023

Does the boat trailer have SURGE brakes or Electric Brakes?

pacofortacos · Apr 28, 2023

coobie said:
Does the boat trailer have SURGE brakes or Electric Brakes?

Electric over hydraulic, so it has neither of those.
It has an electric actuator pushing hydraulic fluid to the brakes.

Mine was formally surge brakes but you replace the surge master cylinder with an electric hydraulic master cylinder. His could have been done the same way or came with the electric hydraulic master cylinder.

I am thinking he has a defective controller or a setting off, but if I remember correctly, mine actually work on any setting but the sensitivity may be off on some settings vs. others.
Either that or the new controllers have a design flaw?

“Trailer not connected “

Fogy2074

Junior Member

Stavinksi

Senior Member

BossHogg

Senior Member

Fogy2074

Junior Member

pacofortacos

Senior Member

pacofortacos

Senior Member

coobie

Senior Member

pacofortacos

Senior Member

Similar threads

Latest posts

Members online

Forum statistics

Share this page