Every RV’r in the known universe has had the time when some @%$# idiot jack_ss in a tiny little Honda Civic decides they absolutely, positively, NEED to cross from the lane to your left, to the exit ramp a lane plus to your right. (And it’s usually got a rear spoiler wing on the back, and muffler that makes it sound like a weed eater – right?!?). Either that, or you finally made it to the bottom of that 4 mile 18% downhill grade, and you’re wondering if it’s actually possible to step on your brake pedal hard enough to actually touch the back of your engine – while the smoke clears from your front brake pads that just disintegrated?

FEAR NOT!

Enter Performance Trailer Braking. These folks do one thing primarily – convert standard electric trailer drum brakes to ‘electric over hydraulic’ disc brakes. (ok, a lot more really useful things, but that’s their main focus). These people ROCK! Michael and Kelly Barnett run a top notch service. They provide top quality materials and give you the option to do it yourself – or get this – have one of their installers COME TO YOU!

Now I (Mike) may be mechanically inclined but I just had no experience whatsoever, and these IMHO were too important to “YouTube It”. So we elected to have them do the installation. And they have no problem with, and actually encourage, “looking over their shoulder”! I love to learn, I like to know how to do things. They love ‘teaching’! The more you know how to do for yourself, the more you can get yourself out of a jam somewhere down the road.

John and Barbara showed up early on a Saturday morning and by Saturday afternoon, we had completely stripped the old brakes off and had a brand new working system in place. They couldn’t have been more friendly and professional. Seriously, we just felt like ‘old friends’ right from the get go!

So, some pictures to follow. Note: (Shameless Self Promotion): Performance Trailer Braking has a Referral Program. IF you happen to stumble on this post and decide to eventually do this, from them … please mention us. YOU get a $50.00 discount, and we get some bucks too. But … honestly, truly … that doesn’t matter to us. They are great people with a top quality product. And … yes, I did ask several local shops in my area what it would cost – these folks were at LEAST half the cost and usually LESS than half the cost of what I could find in Baltimore that were even willing to do the work.

It’s only been one day as of this writing but, we took it out for a long test run and honestly, OMG what a difference. It took about 20 minutes at a local empty park and ride facility to completely fine tune the system but … once done …  the truck and trailer truly feel “at one with each other”.  Neither one feeling like one or the other is dominant. We tried city driving, we tried highway driving. Never once did I have to try to ‘work the controller’. And in a panic stop (yeah we kinda tried that too) .. yup – yer gonna stop like you’ve never believed you could stop before!