Video Transcript for Redarc Tow-Pro Elite Trailer Brake Controller Installation - 2022 Nissan Frontier

Hey everybody, how's it going Today we're gonna be going over and showing you how to install the Redarc Tow-Pro Elite Trailer Brake Controller here on a 2022 Nissan Frontier. So the Tow-Pro Elite is probably one of the best trailer brake controllers on the market, if not the best. It's gonna be a perfect choice here for the Frontier. So all trailer brake controllers are going to control the brakes on your trailer, allow you to come to smooth, safe, and effective stops. But the real differentiating feature of the Redarc is that it's gonna not take up any space on your dash whatsoever. There's gonna be a small little control knob.

Normally with a standard traditional brake controller, there's gonna be a large clunky controller that we're gonna mount on there. That's gonna be taking up your leg space and that's also gonna require drilling into the dash here. Now with the Tow-Pro Elite here, we're actually gonna use an existing little switch panel. We're gonna drill a small hole in there but aside from that it's gonna have a very factory-like finish as you'll see. So not only does a Tow-Pro Elite have a nice low profile design, it also provides us with two different braking modes.

We have both proportional and user controlled. So proportional is gonna be most common in what we're gonna be using most frequently when we're towing out on the highway. And basically the proportional brake controller mode is gonna apply the brakes on our trailer, similar to that of how we're applying them in our vehicle here. So a good analogy I like to use for this is, let's say we're out on the highway. Somebody cuts in front of us.

We're really slamming on our brakes. Well, the controller is gonna sense the braking force in the vehicle and it's gonna apply that same force to the trailer. Now, similarly to, if we're just driving around town, coming to a slow stop at a stop light, the controller is gonna sense just a light braking force on the vehicle. And therefore it's only gonna apply a small amount of braking force to the trailer. Now, this is important because we don't wanna lock the brakes up on the trailer but we also don't want the trailer pushing us.

And the other mode is a little bit less common but it still has its place off road. And that's the user controlled mode. So the user controlled mode allows us to apply the brakes on our trailer without necessarily applying those on our vehicle, which granted that's not gonna be real beneficial, we're out on the highway. But again, those offroad situations, you're certainly gonna love that feature. So here is what our brake controller looks like installed on our vehicle here. And as you can see, the only thing that's visible is this very small control knob, which we actually installed into an existing empty switch panel here. Everything else is tucked away, hidden behind the dash here. So again, this really is gonna cut down on the clutter and it's also gonna help improve the look of your vehicle here. Nobody likes that bulky controller drilled into the bottom of their dash there. It just looks kind of tacky. This thing here looks completely factory. You wouldn't know otherwise unless you knew what it was. So our control knob does rotate right to left. And what this is doing is you're increasing or decreasing the gain being sent to the trailer brakes, which is basically controlling their power. Now if you're wondering where the manual override is, we're actually gonna engage the button by just pressing down and that's gonna activate our manual override. So very easy to use there. We get a nice little tactile feel as well which is nice for that feedback. So you really can't go wrong with the Tow-Pro Elite here when you're selecting a brake controller for your Frontier. If I owned one of these, this is hands down the controller I would choose. As we said earlier, this is probably one of the best options on the market. Again, due to that low profile install and due to how it operates, that two different modes there is really beneficial, both on and off road towing. But now that we've gone over the control a little bit, let's go ahead and jump into that installation so we can show you how easy it is to install. So the first step of our installation, we need to locate the factory trailer brake controller port on the vehicle. And for this particular one, it's gonna be on the driver's side, sort of underneath the dash and underneath the kick panel here. So in order to get a better view of that, we do need to remove a couple panels. So the two panels that we need to remove are this threshold panel here that gets fastened like so, and then the kick panel, which gets installed over here. So the threshold panel, it's just held in place with these two clips here. And there's also a keeper here. So just pry up at those three points there, and it should come out fairly easily. And then the kick panel here, this one's a little bit harder to get out. We have these two fasteners here that are going inwards, towards the outside of the body. And then we have a little thumb screw back here, at the very back that you'll have to reach up there. So once we've got those two panels removed, we can identify the factory tow package there for the trailer brake controller. Now, I don't want you guys to make the same mistake I did. So if we look in here to this factory wiring harness, there's gonna be a small white plug coming directly off that. And that's the one that I originally thought was for the brake controller, this one here. So this is the one I originally thought was for the brake controller. But when you try to make those two ends together, they don't fit. So the one we need for the factory tow package is actually located a couple more inches on this same harness here, just a little bit above the smaller one. So this one's actually taped to the harness. I undid that tape so, but it is kind of tucked up back there and it's really hard to see but it is on this main harness here. And it's just a couple inches above the smaller one. You'll know you have the right one because the other end of your brake controller harness is gonna plug into it. So that brings me to my next point: in order to have a plug and play installation, we will need one additional part. And that's just simply a vehicle specific wiring harness that goes from the factory tow package port on the vehicle to our brake controller. That doesn't actually come with the brake controller, you need to purchase this separately, but thankfully we do carry it here at etrailer. So once we found that port, we're just gonna go ahead and plug the vehicle specific side of your harness into that, it's only gonna go one way. And this other connector here is actually gonna go to our brake controller module, which looks like this. So this is only gonna connect one way as well, just simply press the two to lock it in place. So now that we have these all connected, what we're gonna do is, you're gonna take the cable side of the harness that comes in your kit and you're gonna plug it into this port here just like so. Now we're gonna use some zip ties to secure this module box up here under the dash there, get it out of the way. We don't want any of these wires dangling down, getting caught up on our pedal. So again, a lot of this is gonna be hard to see because you're gonna be reaching up under the dash. And most of it you're gonna be doing by feel anyway. So we're just gonna take some time now. Use some zip ties to secure this module up under our dash. So we've got our control module secured underneath the dash there and we did tuck it up there pretty far. And basically we just used some zip ties to secure it to a nice stable surface up there. That way it's not moving around too much. So we'll go ahead and try to give you a closer look at that now but keep in mind, it is sort of buried up there. So it may be kind of hard to see still. So now we have one connection left and that's gonna be this white cable here and this is actually gonna plug into our control knob like so, but before we plug that in, we need to find a place to mount that. Now, luckily this vehicle has several unused switch panels that we can use for this. So I'm gonna take one. I'm not sure exactly which one I want to use. You can use really any of them. It doesn't matter. Just whatever ones you have open. I think I'm gonna try for one of these up here and we're basically just gonna remove this here using a flathead screwdriver. We're gonna drill a hole in that so we can mount our control knob to this and then we'll pop it back into place and plug it in. So in theory, it should be pretty simple. So we'll just go ahead now, remove one of these switch panels. And again, it doesn't matter which one you choose, just whichever one works best for you. So we've got one of our panels out here. Now I didn't have much luck prying it out from the outside. I was actually starting to nick the plastic a little bit. So what I did is I just came around the back side and I just took a plastic tool such as a trim panel tool. And I just got it up in that opening there and I just pushed it out. So that's probably gonna be the easiest way to get it out. It's a little bit harder to crawl underneath the dash there but we don't wanna damage anything here on the plastic dash. So just go take your time and just push it out from the back there like we did. Shouldn't have any issues. So we've got our switch panel here and our housing for our control knob. And basically how I want this to mount is, I want this to sit through there like so. We're just gonna drill a small hole into that. And then you'll just simply press your little button on there. But as you can see, when we flip this panel around here, we have this kind of webbing that's gonna get in our way. So what I'm gonna do is, I'm gonna take some snips, maybe a file, possibly even a Dremel tool or just a standard knife here. Really whatever tools you have to just remove that sort of internal webbing or whatever you wanna call it there, just gonna give us some more room there for our plastic housing to sit up inside there. So just take some time now with a tool of your choice and go ahead and remove that internal bracing as best you can. So I think once I start breaking it off, I'm also gonna take some needle nose pliers, start removing it that way as well. So you can see here, we got most of that webbing/bracing out of the inside of our switch panel here. So now we're gonna find this center point here of this panel, and we're gonna drill a 25/64th inch hole. So we weren't a hundred percent centered in the hole there but that should still be all right. What we're gonna do next is we're gonna take our level marker here, this has an adhesive backing, and we're going to apply this to that trim panel there. So we want that little hash mark to be facing up. Then we're gonna take our switch mount here. We're gonna place that into that hole like so, and then we're actually gonna secure it here with this little clear plastic nut. So now we've got that plastic nut secured. So I just use a 12 millimeter socket. We're just gonna snug it up a little bit. We may need to come back and tighten it more or possibly loosen it, but we'll know that, we're gonna turn this knob all the way to the left there, counterclockwise. And then you're gonna line up the zero on our control knob with the top hash mark there. And you just press it down. So now I'm gonna go ahead and give this control knob a couple clicks here. You're gonna be doing this mostly by feel but basically we want a nice audible click there. We want a good little tactile response. And if we don't, we can go back and tighten that nut a little bit more or possibly loosen it. This is gonna be engaging the manual override there. So you might be able to hear that clicking but we just want to make sure that we get a nice good throw at that switch there. So now we went ahead and took the other end of our cable and we routed it through that switch panel insert that we removed. Now I'm gonna go ahead and plug it back into the back of the switch there, like so. And then we'll just simply re-secure our switch panel. So now all we have to do is to, number one: just go ahead and press the brake controller. Make sure you get a light on there. Lets us know it has power. So that's great. Now we're gonna secure all that loose wiring that we have dangling underneath the dash there and reinstall our panels. Now the last step of our installation is to calibrate our brake controller. Now, in order to do this, we're gonna be driving around our parking lot here, just making some slow stops. Now we can do this with the trailer hooked up or without the trailer hooked up. I will say it is a little bit easier to do this with a trailer hooked up. It doesn't require as many stops but that's obviously less convenient. Now on our actual brake controller knob right now it should be flashing blue and green. That lets us know that the unit is calibrating. And then once we get a solid blue or a solid green light, that's gonna let us know that the brake controller is calibrated correctly and we can finish our testing. So we did a couple trips around the parking lot there and I can look down at our brake controller and I see we have a solid blue light. So I know the brake controller is calibrated correctly. So now that our brake controller is calibrated successfully, that's gonna do it today for our look and installation of the Redarc Tow-Pro Elite Trailer Brake Controller here on our 2022 Nissan Frontier..