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Some brake controllers clutter the cab and get in the way, but this one sits nearly flush to the dash. The housing is just 1" thick and mounts cleanly with the included bracket and hardware. You still have full access to the pinch-trigger manual override and rocker switches without bumping your knees or taking up console space. Automatic leveling lets you mount it at any angle that feels natural.
The TriFlex NEXT uses a built-in 3-axis accelerometer to match your trailer’s braking force with your vehicle’s deceleration. That means when you brake lightly, the trailer does too; when you hit the brakes hard, it responds instantly with equal strength. It works with trailers that have up to 4 axles (8 brake assemblies) and supports both electric brakes. The result is balanced, steady stops without jerky push-pull motion.
Dialing in brake performance is quick thanks to two rocker switches. The gray rocker sets gain from 0.5 to 9.9 in 0.5 increments so you can match output to trailer weight, while the black rocker fine-tunes load from 1 to 9 for how fast brakes reach full power. Once you find the right settings, braking stays consistent run after run, whether you’re stopping gently or slowing from highway speed.
A bright LED screen displays gain level, load setting, and error codes clearly so you don’t have to squint or guess. You can adjust brightness or switch to night mode to avoid glare after dark. If something’s off—like a wiring issue—the display lets you spot and fix it right away before hitting the road again.
Built-in diagnostics run continuously to watch for shorts or reversed polarity that could damage your controller or trailer wiring. Sleep mode kicks in after 5 minutes of inactivity to minimize battery drain but wakes instantly when you press the brake pedal. The unit also regulates power during long stops so your trailer brakes don’t overheat or fade on extended descents.
The included custom harness connects straight into your vehicle’s factory brake control port under the dash—no wire cutting or splicing necessary. Once plugged in, calibration happens automatically as you drive. The compact box mounts securely with screws or tape wherever it fits best, making installation straightforward even for first-time installers.
Alternate Instructions
Videos are provided as a guide only. Refer to manufacturer installation instructions and specs for complete information.
Hey everyone, it's Trevor with etrailer. Today we're gonna be doing an overview and installation of a Curt TriFlex NEXT on our 2015 Chevrolet Suburban. Now if you're wondering what a brake control is or who this may be for, it can be for anyone that is towing a trailer and you're just looking for a way to control the stopping power of your trailer, make sure it's nice and smooth, or say if you get some sway, being able to cut that sway out while you're on the road. And like our neighbor today, he's been towing some horses around with his Suburban. Now this is what the brake controller is gonna look like when it's all mounted up. And nice thing about the mount portion of this is it's gonna come with adhesive and self-tapping screws.
So you can either make it permanent or you can make it more to where you can move it around as you would like to. And now, good thing about it is you have these gain settings here. This is just gonna allow you the option to control how much power is sent back to your brakes as you step on them. Now your modes will change it from gain to load. And load is gonna be how aggressive those brakes are applied.
So for example, we have it at three and a half. This is gonna control how fast we get to three and a half gain. And then you have some other modes such as your brightness. So you can turn that down or up depending on how bright it is outside. So you don't want it obviously blinding you at night.
And then this just puts it into sleep mode. So if it's darker at night, you won't have to worry about it staying on the entire time while you're towing it. Now you might be wondering, when this is mounted up, is it gonna be in my way Am I gonna bump into it Is it gonna impair my driving Well, here to tell you, I'm a pretty big guy. I have this seat set all the way back, and I'm not running into it at all when I'm looking to touch the gas pedal. Even when I try and slouch back a little bit more into the seat, I'm getting nowhere near this.
And even when I'm driving, I could be able to operate this pretty easily without having to look down at it from the road. Now I did have two more topics I wanted to cover with you real quick. Since I was in customer service for a few years, I've heard a significant amount of questions asked about these brake controllers. And two have been repeated more often than not, and the first one's gonna be, what am I gonna use that manual override for And simply you're just gonna press on it and that'll activate the trailer brakes and really use that mostly for the sway to pull that back in line with your vehicle and for any emergency stops you may have to make. Now another question I heard a lot about was, is this brake controller gonna kill my battery And the answer is no. After five minutes, it's gonna go into sleep mode and limit the draw it pulls off your battery. Now the install on this was fairly simple, the hardest parts of it where you're trying to find out where it's gonna plug into and then routing it to my spot on my dash I wanted it on. But with all that being said, super simple. Just plug it in, plug in the brake controller, mount it up, and you're done. And if that sounds pretty good to you, well let me go ahead and show you how to get that installed real quick. To begin our installation, we're gonna be on our driver's side underneath the dash, specifically behind the emergency brake pedal. And we're gonna be pulling off the cover for our junction box. And to remove this junction box, you'll see these little locks that are stamped onto the cover. That's just gonna show you where the tabs are located. So we'll have two on the passenger side and one on the driver's side. And on the driver's side we'll have this little tab sticking up that you're just gonna push outwards. And then on the passenger side of the cover, you'll have two tabs on the side here that you will just pull on to get it over the lock. Once you got that, just push out and this cover will come off. Now once we get that cover off, our plug and play adapter is gonna plug in right here. And this will be the same for the Suburban and the Silverado. All right, and with that cover off in that spot we found for that plug and play adapter, we're just gonna go ahead and get that plugged in. Once we have that plugged in, we're gonna put the cover back on. And as you can tell on our cover, the top section is gonna be completely open. So what you'll do is you'll put the wire inside of here and then you'll go to push the cover back up and just kind of guide that wire out the top. It is a little tricky because these tabs kinda get hung up on all the wires underneath the dash. But once you get that back up into place, just listen for that click. Once you hear that click, you're good to go. And then we'll route the wire underneath and find a spot for a brake controller. Now from your junction box, I took it and I routed it over a couple supports including this metal support towards the passenger side of the vehicle. And then from there, I plugged in the brake controller, went up towards the center console, and used the adhesive to stick it onto the center console. It was a little bit harder to use the self-tapping screws because there's a lot of electrical connections I could see, but I couldn't exactly mark out exactly where they were. So I just used the adhesive for now. If you wanted to, you could also make this more permanent by using the self-tappers. If you just use the adhesive, you can make it to where you can pull that off later if you plan on switching vehicles. And if you're switching to a similar style vehicle that has that same plug, you can take the plug and play with it. Or we do have an option for a pigtail that you can get so you can hardwire it to your next vehicle. Well that's gonna do it for the installation on the Curt TriFlex NEXT on our 2015 Chevrolet Suburban. My name's Trevor, and thank you for watching.
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Brooke M.
5/20/2025
So happy to hear that! Are you using it while towing an RV?