Tekonsha P3 Brake Controller
If you are towing a trailer that is over 750kg it has to be ‘braked’. That means that you need brakes on the trailer so that you are not reliant solely on the towing vehicle for stopping power.
We bought a Tekonsha P3 Prodigy brake controller off of eBay. This is supposedly one of the better brake controller unit available on the market and I know of several people who have these and they swear by them. There are a couple of options when buying the brake controller from eBay:
- Purchase the unit only
- Purchase the unit along with all the wiring/cabling required for installation
There is a price difference of about $50 – $80 depending on what package you get and who you buy from. I decided that I could source the wiring for much cheaper than what was being offered on eBay so I bought the unit only. First mistake. Really bad idea.
Once I had the controller and had read through the manual and the requirements for installation I went ahead and tried to source the wiring components. This consists of cable, connectors, plugs, cable ties, and a circuit breaker. I managed to find everything except the actual cable required; which is a twin core 5mm cable. I must have spent nearly 6 hours trying to source the cable locally without any luck – about the time it would have taken me to do the installation had I just ordered the wiring package along with the controller.
Anyway, after much frustration and a realisation that I was probably not quite ready to do any auto-electric installations myself, I called up and couple of auto electricians and booked the vehicle in for the installation. It wasn’t cheap at $200, but it was done in a day by a qualified auto-electrician.
Sometimes it’s better to let the professionals get involved and do the job properly!
Camper Trailer Travels 