Dexter Nev-R-Adjust Electric Trailer Brake Assembly - 10" - Left Hand - 3,500 lbs

Etrailer is great. I have been using them since 2014 or 2015 for various stuff. This order was for electric Dexter brakes - ten inch. Some other suppliers offer similar ones for half price but they are not as good as Etrailer. Auto-adjust (they call it Never-adjust) is very important. Also the shoes are cut nicer. One of the electromagnets failed - open circuit - first time that happened. I had 6600 miles on it. Curious failure. Recommended changeout is 12,000 miles anyhow so I am not real upset.
When you're flying down a 9% grade in the Rockies you want the best brakes and the best tires. Get Etrailer. Get the largest wheel and highest load range tires that will fit your trailer from Etrailer. I considered modifying the brakes to disc. $2000 plus they are not maintenance free either. Nothing is "maintenance free". I could change out all the brakes and drums 7 times for that $.1537559

Raymond

3/17/2024

Brakes are still perfect. Mechanic told me not to pump the grease all the way through spindle because the inside seal often fails and grease runs onto the drum surfaces. That happened to me already. Not the fault of the brakes but of course grease makes brakes useless. Suggest pack the bearing the old way by hand.

Mike L.

3/19/2024

@Raymond That's good advice. You'll also want to be sure to use a double lip grease seal which will be more resistant to allowing grease to get past it.

by: Rod Hill12/06/2022

This is what you want. Do not cheap out. At first, I took my trailer to a trailer shop and specified American parts and told them to replace my brakes. They put no brand Chinese crap in my trailer and on my first trip in the rain I totaled my truck and damaged, my trailer and track car all because the brakes did nothing. So I bought the Dexters from Etrailer, put them in myself, and now the rig stops beautifully.1479558

Rod H.

12/7/2023

After a year, the Dexter breaks, still work beautifully and without further attention. The self adjusters appear to be doing their job. Don’t buy drum brakes without them. Meanwhile, the court case caused by the cheap Chinese brakes that were initially installed is still dragging on.

Mike L.

12/7/2023

@RodH We're glad to hear your US-made Dexter brakes are working well for you!

I called and talked to a few people because I was not sure what I needed, and they were very helpful. Answered all my questions and steered me in the correct direction. I have ordered several times from etrailer and will continue ordering from them. etrailer makes it easy for the people that aren't sure what they need. I will be ordering again soon. Thanks for your help.1693283

I have a five and half year old travel trailer with electric brakes. I noticed I had a hub that was intermittently getting hot. I know a little about bearings going bad but realized it was probably the brakes getting old and hanging up. I decided based on the price of these assembled backing plates that doing this full replacement on all four with new tires was good insurance. I order the stuff carefully (including new nuts and washers) on Sunday evening. It was delivered to my house on Friday afternoon all in good order. I had already taken the wheels to the tire store for replacement and removed the hubs. Saturday morning I started working and by the end of the afternoon I had new brakes, regreased bearings, replaced seals, and mounted new tires on my trailer. I did change the bearings on the hub that was getting hot. Just new seals on the others. The information on E Trailer made it easier to order online than to purchase at a local trailer parts house. 183524

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Brakes work great! I used a self tapping screw to ground the brake to the trailer. This worked really well and I didn't need to run a ground wire. The studs needed a trip to the hardware store to get some 7/16 by 40 pitch (fine thread) nylock nuts. All in all a nice brake setup.220259

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Install these brake assy on my 2000 Coleman Utah popup camper very easy install 4 bolts and two wire ready to go. As you can see the brake really need replace. shoe lining fall off. Easy Install 549610

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eTrailer is very easy to do business with. The folks at eTrailer are top notch and helpful. I will order from them again in the near future and would recommend them to anyone needing their services.1673678

The self adjusting brake we ordered for our 2013 Forest River Cherokee was delivered very quickly. The item delivered was exactly as described. It was installed today by our mechanic. I appreciate great value and great service.384593

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Pam S.

5/24/2018

The self adjusting brake that we ordered last year has met our expectations and is working well

Cleaned and packed my bearings and all 4 brakes on my new to me trailer and did my first trip, 5 days from FL to VA and back, trailer and brakes did great!1212655

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Items arrived very quickly and in very good condition. I was pleasantly surprised at the great packing since I ordered 4 brake assemblies and misc parts too. I was able to install all 4 brakes in 2 hours and they fit perfectly. 48241

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by: terra trek trailers06/16/2017

Heads up!!
ordered 4 sets of hub, drums and brakes over two years ago for a project I've been slowly working on. when I received the items, I noticed the packaging was damaged and reported it to etrailer. 2 years later, I finally went to use the items and discovered the bearings, caps and races had been damaged. I notified the management at etrailer and within a week had complete replacements.
What company in this day and age is willing to stand behind a damage claim two years on? Truly remarkable customer service and willingness to go the extra mile.
etrailer, You've won me forever as a devoted and satisfied customer. you guys are rock stars! Thank You.397043

by: Kevin02/23/2023

Perfect replacement for my trailer. etrailer is only place I buy trailer related parts from. Always excellent service. Fastest shipping in the industry.1523157

by: Ryan R06/18/2020

Have had this loaded backing plate for 1 year now and will be purchasing again when needed they work flawlessly 817160

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Last Saturday, after several weeks of research, my wife and I purchased a trailer. It had everything we wanted except for brakes. I asked the dealer if they could install brakes, he said it would take weeks if not longer for him to get the parts and then he would have to arrange for them to be installed.

I told the dealer that I had already done some preliminary research on eTrailer.com for brake parts. On a long shot, I asked the dealer if he could beat eTrailer.com prices for the brake parts and if so I would install. To the dealer's credit, he told me I would be much better off getting the brake parts I needed on my own. So, late Sunday evening I went onto the eTrailer.com website. After taking a couple of measurements to ensure I was ordering the correct parts, I placed the order. Their website is user friendly and intuitive, and the tutorial videos are excellent.

Early Monday morning I got a message from one of eTrailer's employees notifying me that my parts had shipped. He also offered his services if I needed anything further or if I had any questions. I did have questions, so I called him, I wanted to confirm that I had ordered the correct bolt pattern for the hub/drums. Within a couple of minutes we confirmed that I had taken the correct measurements. The reassuring part was, he said if you find the hub/drums are not the correct ones, let me know and we will get a return label out to you and get the correct parts out to you.

By early Thursday afternoon the parts had arrived. I had already watched the installation tutorial video that is on their website. Following the video process, the install was straight forward and PAINLESS. This company is so refreshing! 316824

Ken

11/15/2017

Thanks for the follow up. For almost 10 years now, I have been very happy with the service, products and value that I get from etrailer. So much so, that I refer friends and family to your website as their needs arise. As the mechanic in the family, and around the neighborhood, I often have people approach me for help. Several times a year I find myself referencing etrailers website to find a part we need or that will make a job easier to complete. Additionally, I CANT SAY ENOUGH how helpful etrailers on line video library has been with installations and to help answer questions or trouble shoot problems. I really appreciate that etrailer would take the time and resources to build such a library to help their customers.

Bought 4 sets of these never adjust brakes, converting my 7500 lb trailer from surge hydraulic to truck controlled electric. Easy bolt on and wire conversion. One note of caution: They are called never adjust but should be called "one time adjust". If you fail to get the shoes close to adjusted at install you might get "service trailer brake" notification, as I did. Adjusted the brakes until a slight drag was felt spinning the wheel and all's well.
Good price and fast delivery714278

Gary L.

10/7/2020

Brakes still work great after one year and a few thousand miles. Way better than surge brakes, especially if youre backing up a hill.

by: Papaloco02/01/2017

They went on fairly easy, adjusted well and seemed to work. They did work just not as well as I thought they would. I took a 5000 mile trip through mountains, all kinds of weather and down the highway and the trailer stayed behind. I haven't had time yet to check and see if the automatic adjustment was working by checking the adjustment. A lot easier to replace the complete unit than just parts which may have been wore out. I did the brakes, drums and bearings at the seem time.337483

Papaloco

2/1/2018

Like I thought the automatic adjusters don’t work as well as the ones on my vehicles. They still need to be checked at least once a year.

Made in USA product, first off. Form Fit Function, awesome. The product came lubricated ready to install with lithium grease on the friction areas. I ran these on my trailer for ten years. I never adjusted the brakes one time after the installation. I haul heavy, and often. These brakes are the best for your money. Etrailer is quick and courteous staff that changed my order over the phone per my request to add additional items to the order. This is an easy to wire in item. I solder in my connections, never had to go and do them again. Great part hope to get ten more years out of these ones too. 797433

Wade

5/15/2021

This product has been on my trailer for more than a year. They are broke in and stopping great. still no adjustment since the installation.

Still working on getting the OLD units off the trailer on one side, so install is not complete - but did get one side finished and the fit was Perfect. I am very excited to have the new Nev-R-Adjust versions on the trailer, as adjusting the breaks never seemed to make it into my maintenance schedule.

Service was EXCELLENT, with the ONLY constructive suggestion being the "Packaging" of the shipment. Fortunately your double weight boxes held up, but there was No Packing placed under the parts, but loads of packing put on the top. This allowed the parts to beat around along the bottom of the box unprotected, and almost break through the cardboard along the bottom, but as mentioned, everything did arrive intact.

Thank you for the Prompt Shipment, Excellent pricing, and true US Made, OEM Parts - Not Cheep Off-Shore Immitation replacas!31715

Lawrence P.

5/24/2015

Got my brakes in late May 2015. Same packing methodology. And green wires were crushed in spots. I actually pack college books I sell on Amazon better than the brakes were packed. So this comment feom 2012 still holds true. The job has been easy to accomplish regarding install. No brainer, just messy.

update 3/18/13, i installed new brakes on 3/17/13 it was very easy to do, took it for a 40 mile spin and it works as expected, i also added new bearings and races, i am very happy with the never adjust brakes willsave headaches later. thsnkd for the fast service ken p.s. unable to do pictures having trouble with computer71337

Kenneth D.

3/19/2014

I just wanted to say the self adjust brakes I purchased worked without fail it was so easy my wife installed one side I did the other it was great working together I would also recommend watching video just as a refresher it had been many years since I had adjusted wheel bearings remember the old front hubs on chevy trucks we had to remove to do a brake job ? thanks again for the great videos ken and celeste Dixon and Harvey the jack Russell who licked the hubs clean lol

Patrick B.

3/20/2014

Thanks for coming back and following up with us. We had never of replacing brake assemblies as a his and hers project. The couple that turns wrenches together...

I am very happy with these replacement brake assemblies.
I needed to replace the brakes on my boat and I decided to upgrade them from surge breaks with the manually adjusted style to these self-adjusting ones. I did talk to 3 different trailer repair shops all replace surge with electric brakes and all stated the same that fresh water will not hurt or the brakes. Plus living in Colorado driving in the Mountains over heats surge brakes.

Remember to order new adjuster plugs since they do not come with these brake assemblies. Even though the pictures make them seem like they are included. Needless to say, I had to order some after-the-fact as I did not notice they were not included.

I could not get a screw driver or brake adjuster spoon tool to work around my drop spindles, so I just popped the hub off and tweaked the one brake assembly that seemed two tight when I did a test spin with the wheel in the air.

I had the old off and the new ones on in about 90 minutes per wheel.
I can tell the brakes are working well as when I manually apply them through the controller I can feel it pull on the vehicle and slow it down. 102004

Patrick B.

10/1/2013

While electric brakes can work in marine applications, there are some things to be aware. Submersing the system in water exposes components to water that normally would not. This will cause electrical connections and components to corrode faster. Inspection and maintenance will need to be more frequent and some parts will have shorter service lives. Hydraulic is always our recommendation for marine applications whether paired with a surge coupler or with an electric-over-hydraulic pump. The latter would be a good solution for mountainous or hilly driving that cause brakes to overheat with surge systems.

I am very happy with these replacement brake assemblies.

I needed to replace the brakes on my camper and I decided to upgrade them from the manually adjusted style to these self-adjusting ones. Now I know my camper brakes will always be working at their best.

Easy to install on my AL-KO 3500# axles. Be sure to order the recommended mounting nuts so you do not need to reuse them. Remember to order new adjuster plugs since they do not come with these brake assemblies. Even though the pictures make them seam like they are included. Needless to say, I had to order some after-the-fact. My old ones used one plug each and these require two each. My old ones were aged enough that I did not want to reuse them.

They did not come with any electrical connectors, but that did not bother me since I used heat shrink butt connectors anyways.

It is just easier to get them adjusted close when you put the hubs back on. If you have drop spindles like me, you cannot tweak them through the adjuster holes. I could not get a screw driver or brake adjuster spoon tool to work around my drop spindles, so I just popped the hub off and tweaked the one brake assembly that seemed two tight when I did a test spin with the wheel in the air.92218

Dave E.

10/4/2014

hey Matt Ive never used electric brakes nor have I ever used this new style you are talking of which is on the trailer that I am pulling do I need to set anything on my truck built in I have a brake controller do I need to set the numbers on it or is it just ditself

Patrick B.

10/6/2014

A factory integrated brake controller will need to be adjusted for your particular trailer. There should be a section in the owner's manual on how to adjust the controller. It will need to be adjusted each time you tow a trailer of a different size or weight, unless it has programable memory settings. You may also need to adjust the brakes themselves on the trailer. Yolu want a slight, even amount of drag all the way around as you rotate the hub by hand.

Exactly as stated. Everything you need already loaded onto backing plate. Undo 4 nuts, clip brake wires and old one falls off. New one fits perfectly. I bought the drum to go with it as a broken spring tore the heck out of everything in the old one. Bolt on easy ... basic mechanic skills required. Excellent quality, too.144163

John S.

8/3/2015

Put over 6000 miles on my trailer - no problems!

by: Jim L.05/01/2016

When it come's to finding parts for an old trailer, sometimes your left scratching your head. Not the case here, etrailer had everything required for some much needed maintenence on 70s vintage utility trailer.

This brake set is everything ilike needed it to be, fit the axles and brake drums, all new components, and at a great price. Easy wiring and installed in under an hour per axle.

The only thing keeping this review under 5 stars was the length of the wire leads from the assembly. It forces you to crimp a butt splice on your ground connect247824

My 2012 travel trailer came equipped with 1-3/4” wide brakes, which is not a common size. When it was time to do maintenance I went to etrailer.com because of the wealth of information and advice available. After reading the information it became obvious that the best course of action would be to upgrade to 10 x 2-1/4” brakes and hubs. My supplies arrived in good shape, with the Dexter boxes inside of other boxes from etrailer. After watching helpful videos I installed the new brakes in a day. Things went smoothly, installing new complete brake sets is so much easier than messing around with individual parts, and probably about the same cost. Now came time to wear in the brakes and check things out. Beware that it is really tempting to not wait long enough for the brakes to cool in between evolutions where you apply them hard and go from 40 to 20 MPH. They can get pretty hot. The end result is that now we have much more braking power, the braking is smoother, and we have confidence in our ability to stop which is priceless. Not having to adjust our brakes is a plus. We are very pleased with our Dexter never adjust brakes and especially pleased with the exceptional customer service and expert advice from etrailer. Add in the price guarantee and dealing with them is truly a no-brainer.806752

This is the exact brake assembly that came on my trailer when it was new (18ft aluminum car hauler by R and R Trailers of Three Rivers MI) . Same part from the same manufacturer. I purchased 4 new ones because after 3 years of non-marine use, one of the brake linings came off and locked up one of the trailer wheels causing it to flat spot one of the tires bad enough to require the tire's replacement.

Shipping: I received them very quickly. But of the 4 assemblies ordered, 2 of them had damaged wiring due to poor packaging by the seller. I considered sending them back, but because I needed to use the trailer soon, I simply repaired the damaged wires and installed them.

Removal: This is not easy or fun. Each of the brake assemblies is held on with 4 mounting studs and nuts. These nuts are 7/16-20 i.e fine thread, which are not included. This wasn't really a problem except that these nuts were not in stock at my local Home Depot, Lowe's, or Tractor Supply. After driving all over the place looking for the mounting nuts, I finally found them at Fastenal. Removing the existing brakes was a nightmare. After soaking the existing mounting nuts in PB Blaster, I tried to remove them to find that they were so difficult to get off that they actually caused the studs to break free from where they had been pressed into the backing plate and just spin freely. Of the 16 mounting studs (4 studs x 4 brake assemblies) only 3 of them actually came off and the rest had to be cut off. This pretty much took all day to accomplish. Again, the existing trailer brakes were the *identical* brake assemblies that I purchased, but with 3 years of highway use. I would expect this much difficulty if it was on a boat trailer due to the regular submersion in water, but I would expect less corrosion on a car hauler.

Installation: Once I had cut off the existing brake assemblies, Installation was not very difficult. Before I mounted them, I took them down to my local welder and had him tack weld the studs in place so that they wouldn't break free from the backing plate when/if I ever needed to remove these again. I anti-seized the studs and mounted them to the trailer & connected the wiring. I had to reuse the star wheel access port plugs because they did not come with new plugs.

I think this is an ok product considering that these brake assemblies adjust themselves as the shoes wear down, and I find this greatly superior to the other method of having to adjust them yourself. I would actually still consider purchasing these brakes again, even after all that.

My complaints are as follows:

- shoe failure after 3 years of highway use resulting in tire failure
- damaged wiring due to poor packaging
- lack of mounting nuts and the difficulty in finding new ones
- lack of new access port plugs,
- *especially* the poor quality of the backing plate and studs

A product with a "made in USA" label just shouldn't have this many issues with it.
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