To see if this custom-fit item will work for you please tell us what vehicle you'll use it with.
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.
Howdy there, neighbors, Ian with etrailer here. Today, we're gonna be taking a look at the Tekonsha Prodigy P3 on our 2021 Jeep Grand Cherokee. Let's get right into that look at and then we will get into the installation after. The P3 here is going to have probably the most features out of the Tekonsha lines. It does have this beautiful LCD readout here, in my opinion, looks the best. Kind of works with the gauge clusters and matches everything in the vehicle.
It's got our nice manual override. That way if we're not wanting to use the brake pedal and just want to put some pressure on the brakes of the trailer, we've got that lever there. It does have a boost button so that way if you've got a heavier load and it does show this nice little indicator here for different types of trailers as well, kind of giving you an indication of what the setting would imply it was for. Of course here we've got it showing that little horse trailer option. And then does have this level three where it's gonna go even further into larger trailers.
It is a nice compact design. It's got the hangar up here that's just gonna mount directly to the dash. A little bit of adjustability as far as up and down, but not any back and forth or side to side. It will allow you to store multiple trailers and drivers so that way if you've got settings that you want, particularly for different loads that you're gonna be hauling, whether you're hauling just maybe a car to a car show or some vintage motorcycles to a motorcycle show, or if you've got just a smaller trailer that's gonna have your mower on it, you can set all of those with that. With this proportional system instead of it being the time system, it is gonna apply the brakes as much as you press the pedal, so you may want to have that adjusted.
The adjustments are done just by setting these little arrows here. You can just push those buttons and it sets that to whatever you would need. It does have some other features that can be changed within the menu here. If you don't like how bright it is or even the way the display's set up, it's got the option for that. And then this brake type I thought was really interesting because it does give you the option for hydraulic or electric brakes depending on what type of load you're gonna be hauling back behind the vehicle.
And I did want to talk about proportionality when it comes to this brake controller. That's really gonna come into play when you've got heavier loads in the rear, you don't want to eat your brakes up in either the vehicle or the trailer. So that way you've got an idea of if I'm applying more pressure, it's gonna put more to the trailer as well, evenly distributing out your braking as you're going down the road. And lucky for us, this vehicle's got the tow package, but if your vehicle doesn't have the tow package, you'll have to look at the ETBC7 that we offer on etrailer.com. That's gonna allow you to hook up your 7-way and get everything to the back of the vehicle. But for now, since we've already got the tow package, we're just gonna need those two harnesses. The adapters that are gonna allow us to not only plug directly into the vehicle's harness, but also to plug directly into our control module as well. So let's get right into that install, I'll show you how easy that's gonna be. This particular harness is gonna be a two-foot harness. It does have our end here that will plug directly into the vehicle. And then the opposite plug here is gonna plug into our brake controller. And hopping right into the install of our harness here, we're gonna come underneath the dash. There are just two push pins, one left and one right that are gonna get popped out. You may need to pick up a push pin removal tool off the website as well. Or sometimes you can get 'em off with a flat head, just kind of slowly prying those out of there. And then once we've got these push pins removed here, we're going to pull this out just enough we can access this little light for the foot well here. It's just a squeeze-type plug, you may have to push a little pressure in and then back out and it should just come undone. And we'll set that off to the side for now. And this is where that custom plug is really gonna come into play. It's just ready for us to go right above this main set of harness. You'll see there's another gray connector that's gonna allow for that to just slide in. You'll wanna make sure your push release here is on top. And we'll just carefully plug that in. And once that's plugged in you'll hear that little click and then you can kind of just give it a little tug to make sure that's in there correctly. We're gonna go ahead and get that zip tied out of the way. I've got one spot here, it looks like a little indicator light or something like that that's got a bracket. So I've just got that one zip tie on it, get that up there nice and snug. And then I'm gonna leave this loose for now 'cause we're gonna be mounting the brake controller up in this area. One thing I wanted to make sure to mention is since this airbag is here, you can get your hand up over the top of the vents that are under there and that airbag assembly so that way you can triple check where you're gonna be putting this. You wouldn't wanna puncture any wires or any lines or run into this airbag accidentally when you're putting the brake controller up. So now that we've got that zip tied out of the way, we're gonna go ahead and get this adapter put in. This end is meant for the CURT brake controllers, but with this adapter we're gonna be able to hook up to the Tekonsha, just another plug and play connector there like it was up at the beginning. And now we've got our end for the Tekonsha brake controller opposed to the CURT. We'll just go ahead and get our bracket mounted up here and I'll show you how that's done. I did hold our bracket up and just made a couple marks where I'm gonna be putting our screws. The kit's gonna come with a couple just pointier looking screws. They're not self-tappers, and in my opinion I'd prefer self-tappers, but you get what you get on that. I've got a couple with me just to be able to show what you do with the hardware that comes with it. I've already marked the holes and we're gonna pre-drill those just a little bit so those screws start nice and easy. We've already checked behind to make sure there's nothing there that I'm gonna be hitting as far as wires or any lines. And we'll just run these far enough that it gets through the dash and we can put our screws in. Go ahead and get our bracket mounted up. There's just two screws that are gonna slide through. You do have your adjustability left and right and no other adjustability on that. Some of the other options are gonna have a little bit more. I don't feel like with this mount that it's really necessary. And just getting both of those screws snug down here. (screwdriver whirring) Then to mount the P3 here, we're just gonna slide this into the bracket. You might have to apply a little pressure on the sides. One thing I did mention is it comes with these little screws that are gonna go in each side. You may wanna run those down 'cause this inside back bracket, I can even pull that off to show you here. This inside back bracket from the factory is not gonna come with any threading in these holes. So just to make it a little easier on you once you've got it lined up in the bracket, just go ahead and thread those little bolts in beforehand and then that'll make it to where there's threading there and makes the alignment just a little bit easier once we're getting the bracket on. (ratchet clicking) Let's take the end from our adapter here to the end of the control unit. Again, plug and play, so nice and easy install. Looks like we've already got it talking to us, which is a good sign. And then we'll snap it into place on the mount. We've got that lower panel put into place. So I do see here that we've already got our screen lit up, so that's a good sign that we've got power coming to the unit and we've got a tester hooked up to the rear of the vehicle. You can use your own trailer just to make sure all the lights are gonna function once you're hooked up. And now that we've confirmed that we've got good power at the controller, I'm just gonna run through all the check tests there. You'll be able to see on that box that we're gonna run through starting with our brakes, which should have a reaction there. And then I'll get the vehicle started and we'll run through the lights. (engine revs) (indicator dings) So with the brakes no longer on, I'm gonna go ahead and run our left turn signal and then our right turn signal. And then just to make sure, I'm gonna turn those marker clearance lights on as well. And those off. And that'll conclude the look at and installation of our Tekonsha Prodigy P3 on our 2021 Jeep Grand Cherokee. Appreciate you sticking around. My name's Ian with etrailer, have a wonderful day.
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