Fix for New Ford Truck W/ Factory TBC That Is Giving Trailer Disconnected Error While Towing

Updated 05/24/2023 | Published 05/22/2023

Question:

I recently bought a new truck 2022 Ford F350 to pull my 2010 Fifth Wheel that’s outfitted with Dexter Brakes Electric over Hydraulic. For some reason, my truck cannot tell the difference between Electric over Hydraulic vs just regular electric brakes. I’ve had constant issues with the truck stating “Trailer connected, Trailer disconnected” while towing seems very dangerous especially when traveling downhill. After looking into forums and this website, it seems that I have to purchase an adaptor from Dexter to “trick” the truck into seeing that the trailer has EOH brakes. I used to pull the trailer with a 2000 Ford F350 with a Tekonsha P3 Prodigy brake controller. In order for the brakes to work, I actually had to set the controller to the EOH setting. Which tells me that the Tekonsha can tell the difference between the two braking systems. My question is: how can the Tekonsha tell the difference between the two braking systems? Is it a built in resistor or something? It seems like a fairly large safety issue that my braking system can’t be recognized by a vehicle that is designed to be towing all kinds of trailers. And this issue seems to affect GM and Ram as well.

asked by: Jake

Helpful Expert Reply:

You are correct, this is actually a fairly common occurrence and a known issue for the newer Ford trucks and their factory TBC not working with Dexter EOH brakes. Ford did have a recall for almost 400,000 trucks with this issue and they discovered it to be a software issue.

That said, many owner's have found using the Adapter Module for BrakeRite Electric Over Hydraulic Actuator # DX35FR fixed the issue. This product is designed to integrate with your system and intercept verification signals to prevent false error codes.

So it's not necessarily that Tekonsha TBC have some special parts in it, but rather this was just a Ford software issue.

expert reply by: Bryce D