Saturday, Sep 06, 2014 at 21:34
I'll let others with more offroad miles than me comment on the adequacy of the brakes, but we've never had the slightest problem and knowing what I know about their approach, I'd be amazed if BT did not overbuild them. Be surprised if they were not up to the job. (I also imagine the main time your brakes will be extended is on the blacktop, not at much lower speeds offroad.)
As to the electronic stability control unit, here's my 2 cents' worth:
1. Another gizmo to fail, fall off, fail 'unsafe' (ie. apply the brakes at the wrong time) etc. A little bit more weight; it all adds up.
2. From a quick look at their website it looks like a relatively 'dumb' controller, in that it senses sway/swerve then just applies both sides' brakes equally. That will certainly help, but it might be better if it was more like car ESCs which apply brakes only on the appropriate side to correct the sway.
3. Given that, this means it does nothing more than reaching down and manually applying the brake slider. Now some of us will say "yeah, but I can do that manually whenever I need to". And for a subset of those that say it, that will in fact be true. But for most of the rest of us, even very experienced and savvy drivers, there will be times when although we COULD or SHOULD reach down and manually correct the trailer sway, we are in fact too busy swerving, swearing or not yet reacting. We don't always live up to our own aspirations, when the crisis strikes.
4. Most of these automatic safety systems are resisted as unnecessary expensive add-ons at first, then slowly become accepted, then become seen as essential. (If you're one of those who say you don't need ESC, ask yourself if you'd REALLY go back to a non-ABS car, even though you felt it was a bit of an unnecessary gimmick when it first appeared.)
So all in all, if it's well made and well installed, and been proven to survive harsh offroad conditions, and has been independently tested to actually work as advertised, then I reckon an ESC unit of some form for the caravan might be a good investment. Whether this one at this time, is up to you.
Good luck, and if you do go ahead come back and post us your results.
Matt
PS: Haha. I'm smiling, imagining the flaming you'd get on Steve's site if you dared to suggest the BT brakes weren't 200% adequate straight off the factory floor! It would be good for about 3 screens, I reckon.
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