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The Tekonsha P3 is a brake controller beloved for its reliability and useability. You're able to save your settings and multiple profiles. It's easy to install, and with the custom harness, it's plug-and-play.
Features:
Specs:
Braking output is the maximum amount of power that will be applied to your trailer's brakes. How much braking output you need is determined by the weight of your trailer; a heavier trailer will need more power to bring it to a stop. You want to go as high as you can without the trailer brakes locking up.
Use the arrow buttons on the front of the module to set the output.
The boost setting controls the aggressiveness of your trailer's braking, meaning how quickly the brakes reach the maximum braking level. If your vehicle takes too long to come to a stop, increase the setting. If it stops too abruptly, decrease the setting.
Depending on the level of boost, your trailer brakes can start at either 13 percent or 25 percent of the set braking output. So instead of starting at 0, the brakes will start at 25 percent and get to 100 percent sooner. This keeps the trailer from pushing your tow vehicle forward.
Boost Levels:
| Approximate Gross Trailer Weight | Boost Level | Increase in Initial Power Output |
|---|---|---|
| Less than tow vehicle GVW | B1 | 13% |
| Equal to tow vehicle GVW | B1 or B2 | 13% or 25% |
| Up to 25% more than tow vehicle GVW | B2 or B3* | 25% |
| Up to 40% more than tow vehicle GVW | B3* | 25% |
*Both B2 and B3 offer a 25-percent boost in initial power. But the braking curve for B3 is more aggressive than that of B2. This means that, even though you will start out with the same intensity when using these boost levels, you will get an overall more aggressive braking experience with the higher level. So if you use B3, you will reach maximum braking sooner than if you use B2.
To engage the manual override, twist the rotary-style lever from right to left. This will activate the trailer's brakes and brake lights independently of your vehicle, great for stopping sway or controlling your trailer's momentum in an emergency.
The P3 is able to store your settings in multiple profiles so that you can have them ready to go for different trailers and drivers. Even the display is super customizable: you can change the screen color, brightness, and language to make it easy to use.
The P3 makes it easy to troubleshoot problems as they come up, with comprehensible and detailed diagnostics displayed on the screen.
Diagnostic troubleshooting messages include:
Diagnostic warning signs include:
The Prodigy P3 offers advanced safety features to prevent damage to various components of your towing setup.
-Integrated reverse battery protection shields the brake controller and your trailer's breakaway system from shorts.
-When the P3 is not in use, it draws only 3.6 milliamps, minimizing drain on your vehicle's battery.
-Any time your vehicle and trailer are at a standstill with the brakes applied for more than 5 seconds, the hold feature will kick on and reduce power to just 25 percent. This will keep your trailer in place without your brakes overheating.
Installing the P3 is incredibly simple. You'll mount the bracket to your dashboard then mount the unit to the bracket. Plug the custom harness into your vehicle and into the unit. Done!
Keep in mind that the P3 must be horizontally level and parallel with the direction of travel to work correctly.
With a replacement wiring harness (sold separately) and replacement bracket (TK5906 - sold separately), you can even transfer the Prodigy P3 to another vehicle.
Note: If you don't already have a 7-way plug at the back of your vehicle, take a look at our exclusive 7- and 4-way brake controller installation kit (ETBC7 - sold separately).
Proportional braking means that your trailer brakes mimic your tow vehicle's brakes. If you slam on the brakes, your trailer brakes will activate with the same intensity; if you brake lightly, your trailer brakes lightly too. The trailer's braking is in proportion to your vehicle and trailer.
The Prodigy P3 uses an internal inertia sensor to detect how your vehicle is braking so it can send the right amount of braking power to your trailer. It measures the inertia of your tow vehicle and activates the trailer's brakes to slow at the same rate. The result is uniform braking across your towing setup. No push-pull action - just smooth, proportional braking every time.
Alternate Instructions
California residents: click here
Videos are provided as a guide only. Refer to manufacturer installation instructions and specs for complete information.
Speaker 1: Today in our 2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee, we're going to be installing Tekonsha's Prodigy P3 Trailer Brake Controller, part number 90195, and in conjunction with that, we'll be using Tekonsha's Plug-In Wiring Adaptor, part number 3045-P.This is a premium brake controller with an abundance of extra features in addition to a regular trailer brake controller's uses. This braking system is proportional, so the faster you're moving and the harder you apply the brakes, the more that it's gonna transfer back to your trailer, allowing it to stop the same way that your vehicle stops.It can be mounted in the 360 degree rotation, 'cause it'll auto level itself. This is nice so you can get the most out of the locations where you can place it on your vehicle. The buttons located on the left allow you to set the power. Higher power settings will give you a more aggressive braking and lower settings will be less sensitive. This is useful if you have different trailer loads.
So if you have a lighter load, you can turn that down or if you have a heavier load, you can turn it up.For further fine tuning of your trailer loads, it has a boost setting using the top right button. This boost setting will allow the brakes to be more sensitive on a braking application. And when the boost is set off or on boost setting one, this is ideal for trailer loads that are less than the weight of the vehicle.If your trailer weighs roughly the same as the vehicle, boost one and two can be used and if your trailer load is more than the vehicle, you can use settings two and three. There's a manual lever located at the bottom. This way you can manually apply your brakes in an emergency situation or just during testing.It has an easy to see and use interface with the LCD display.
The lower right button with the picture of the open book on it will allow you to open up the settings menu. Here you can change your display options such as brightness, color and contrast. You can also change your brake type so you can have electric, hydraulic or electric over hydraulic. And last, you have your help where you can change your language and troubleshooting settings.Now if you are using the boost feature and you want to reverse, sometimes that extra sensitivity from the boost can make it a little difficult to back up. So to temporarily disable the boost, you can hold the brake pedal and hold the boost button for five seconds.
You'll then see the 'R' flashing in the top right indicating that boost has been temporarily disabled. This will go on for about three minutes making it easier for those backing up maneuvers. You can end it early by pressing the boost button.Now that we've gone over the features, let's show you how to get it installed. It's one of the easiest out there with the factory wiring harness. We'll start our installation here at the driver's lower left kick panel.
We'll need to remove the cloth under shield. You can do that by pushing away towards the front of the vehicle, rotating it to the side and just kicking it down. It can rest against the brake pedal here.Your trailer brake controller connector's going to be located directly above the large harness right behind this covering. It's hard to see but you can get a small glimpse of it. It's a four pin gray connector that'll match our plug and play adaptor here. We'll go ahead and take our gray end and just plug it right in. You have to kind of work it up in there, get your hand in place and just make sure you go all the way in until it clicks.Now that it's plugged in, you get a little better idea of where it's located. Now we can run our wiring back and reinstall the cloth under shield that just pushes right back into place.Due to the mounting restrictions on the P3, the only place we can mount it is gonna be located here on the left side of your steering column. Use the two self tapping screws to thread it into the panel. We're gonna kind of line up the bottom of the bracket with the bottom edge of the control panel here. After you've got one screw started, go ahead and start the other. We're just using a Phillips head screwdriver. You could also use a power drill with a Phillips head bit on the end.We're going to use the quick release bracket to go with the small bracket. Go ahead and line up the two holes on the quick release bracket with the small bracket that we just threaded into the dash. We're gonna use the machine screws to thread into this bracket, and then thread in the other side. Before you thread 'em all the way down, you're gonna want to set the angle that you want it to be located at. We're gonna put ours right at about this angle here and then tighten it down. They can rotate up or down. Refer to your instructions to ensure that you're not exceeding the angle in which it can be mounted.Now to the wiring up there, we are going to come back up from the bottom panel and down through the square opening in the panel. We want to make sure that the wiring is routed in front of your emergency brake pedal here so it doesn't contact it when you apply your emergency brake. Once you've got that set, just go up and plug it into your controller.When everything's connected properly, your controller will light up when you plug it in. Now you can hook it to your trailer manually activate the brakes using the sweeper on the bottom and verify that it applies the brakes on your trailer. We've got our trailer tester plugged in and as you can see here when I swipe the brakes, it applies back on our tester.That completes our installation of the Tekonsha Prodigy P3 Trailer Brake Controller and the Tekonsha Plug-In Wiring Adaptor on our 2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee.
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