Trailer icon

[hisnhers]

I have a MY10 RRS TDV6. As I understand it, when a trailer is connected, there should be a trailer icon that appears on the dashboard.

When i recently connected a borrowed box trailer, the connnector(we'll call this 1) that came with the car didn't work( brake and tail lights ok, right indicator stays on). My friend(he is an old Italian, I thnk he never throws away anything!) happened to have a connector(we'll call this 2) that worked, so was happy with that.

However, I tried connecting our caravan and neither connector works. 1 is the same as before, tail lights and brake lights work, but right indicator stays on, even when the indicator is off in the car). 2 doesnt have any indicators at all.

Both trailer and caravan have LED tail lights. Could this be the root of the issue?

I am getting an auto electrician to look at it next week, but just wanted to get some thoughts first. Could it be that despite having the right mechanical connectors, the trailer option is not activated on the CCF? I have a GAP iidTool on order, but it doesnt get here until Wednesday.

Also, is it normal to have a bit of play in the tow hitch? It drives me nuts, and i'm hoping it's an easy fix.

Thanks for your help.

[Stuart02]

The first guess would just be the LEDs not drawing enough current.
Not sure re the connector issues (you mean flat to round 7 pin?)

[hisnhers]

Yes sorry, so the original Euro type round to 7 pin flat. I should also mention that I use an elecbrake controller that has a 7 pin flat (from the caravan) to a 7 pin flat (on the RRS connector)

[Graeme]

If the car hasn't had an electric brake controller used with it before then the wiring to the trailer socket will still be incorrect for Australian wiring. Originally the pin that supplies our brake controller signal (pin 5 IIRC) is wired to supply one side tail light whereas our trailer tail-lights are all powered from a single wire. You will need to check for power at the pins in the socket to confirm the state of the wiring. If the wiring is original then the usual solution is to cut the wire in the trailer harness behind the left light cluster after the join of the left and right wires then use the cut wire for the brake controller.

[hisnhers]

Hmm, I might have to get a multimeter i think just to see what’s coming through on the pins.

The elecbrake app has a function to see what voltage is coming through the device, and it shows 14.7v on both the tail and brake light circuit.

I’m going to the Queanbeyan 4x4 show tomorrow, so will hopefully pick up a multimeter there, along with a handheld UHF and towing mirrors.

[hisnhers]

LOL!!!

So I'm starting to realise that if theres a way to make something complicated, LR will find it. I actually looked at the two connectors I have to see how they're wired, and realised that they are not 13pin to 7 pin convertors - one is a 5 pin round and the other is 7 pin round (the 5 pin came with the car, the 7 pin in the one that my mate had).

So what now?! I then looked at the connectors on the car - yes they are both 7 pin round! ARGH!!!

I will get a multimeter and measure everything.

[hisnhers]

Hah! Now i feel a little stupid, just picked up that instead of the euro 13pin plug it has a 12N and 12S plug - argh!! And i thought i had read all the posts on trailer wiring.

[peterjj]

Once you have the wiring sorted out ... with incandescent bulbs in the trailer the trailer icon will appear on the dash when either turning indicator is on but with LED trailer lights the trailer icon will not appear and the trailer indicators will flash too fast. There are gadgets you can buy to plug into the car trailer socket and have the trailer plug into that which will make the trailer icon appear and the flashing be normal. Or wire in a load resistor yourself, just make sure it is not powered on all the time. When the car detects a trailer is plugged in (ie the trailer icon works) I think the car adjusts ABS and stability control.

[hisnhers]

Curiouser and curiouser!!

So I went to a mates place yesterday and hooked up to his caravan that has incandescent bulbs - hey presto all works! Trailer icon flashes the lot.

So i may have two issues -
1) LED taillights causing problems
2) Elecbrakes causing problems

I will be getting some load resistors this afternoon so will wire them in and see how it goes.

[Tombie]

You have an external electric braking system or one wired into the vehicle eg. Redarc?

I'm pretty sure I know what the problems going to be.. And it has nothing to do with LED or Incandesent... thats an entirely different issue.

[hisnhers]

Hi Tombie,

External - this one here ->Electric Brake Controller - Plug and Play Setup: Elecbrakes (https://www.elecbrakes.com)

Any help super appreciated!!

[101RRS]

I have recently towed a large trailer with my RRS using that system - controlled by my phone in the cabin.

My RRS has the OEM wiring loom but I did not connect up the white socket as I did not need it. I have the standard black round 7 pin connector and when I tow my own stuff I use and adaptor to turn it into a standard flat 7 pin.

The large trailer used the large black round 7 pin socket so plugged straight into the car. The cable on the trailer feeds the Electbrake controller on the trailer and the lights etc. I have a pulse buster for when trailer LEDS are used but the trailer has one inbuilt. The phone synced with the trailer as soon as I put the headlights on - as set up this trailer takes it power for the Electbrake unit from the light cable and takes the brake signal via the brake cable and obviously the bluetooth signal from the phone.

Worked fine - travelled Canberra to Ballarat and back in two days, so assuming the trailer is wired correctly there is no problem using a Electbrake system with a RRS - the only modification to my trailer wiring is to remove the required tail light circuit to the trailer brakes do not come on when the light are on. I have the rear trailer wiring fuse box so just pull the relent fuse. (RRS/D3 are wired for European trailers which have individual circuits for the tail lights where the Aust system has one circuit for both tail lights - in the Aust system the spare tail light circuit is used for trailer brakes hence on an unmodified system the trailer brakes come on when the headlights come on - there must be a squillion posts on this on the forum).

So the issues you have are most likely due the leds in the trailer.

Garry

[hisnhers]

When all else fails, go back to basics.

So with the multimeter, I was able to test each and every connection - if you are interested, the voltage from the indicators are only approximately 200mV(edited), and the rest are as you expect, around 12v if car is not running and 14.7 if it is.
Turns out my issue with the left indicator was just a loose/dirty connection. So when that started working I was ecstatic!!

Also, I removed the blue wire connection in the convertor, so now i only have one tail lamp connection going to the trailer. So its not going to trigger the caravan brakes as soon as the headlights go on.

Everything works. Besides the above though, I have not changed anything.

Interestingly, although I still don't have the tralier icon on the dash, it appears that on some level the car does know that I am connected as there is no reverse beeping when the trailer is connected via the elecbrake unit.

If i remove the elecbrake unit and connect the car directly to the caravan, then it beeps in reverse. So the elecbrakes unit must have some sort of electronic trickery in it that tells the car that, yes, a trailer is connected. Or maybe its just that with it connected there is enough of a load on the wiring to provide the signal to the car. So should i bother with the load resistors?

On another note, the rear fog lights are connected to the auxiliary circuit (pin 2, also known as the reversing signal on the standard wiring diagrams), how much current can this circuit handle? Enough to run a 3 way fridge on 12v while driving, ie 10A?

[hisnhers]

Ok, so after a long trip up to QLD (about 1300km) averaging about 15.6-17.6l/100km there is still no trailer icon.

The car does know the caravan is connected though - when i reached my brother in laws place, i had to take the caravan down the back to his shed, which was down a steep grass slope - so I put it in grass mode, in low range with the hill descent control on, and a message flashed up saying trailer is connected, off road mode not selected automatically.

And now the car beeps in reverse - so annoying.

When we get home to Canberra i will have to put the load resistors on and see if it works better.