Trailer issue......

I have had my 2019 Tundra since August if 2019 and have towed regularly throughout the last almost 4 years. The last two times I have hooked up a trailer, the vehicle did not recognize that a trailer was hooked up. The first time, my wife had the truck and was picking up an RV rental. I wasn't able to be there due to work, but it apparently took the RV shop technician about 20 minutes to figure out how to get the vehicle to recognize the trailer. This was necessary as the travel trailer was big enough that I wanted the brake controller.

I have no idea what he did - literally every other time I towed, it automatically recognized the trailer when I plugged in the 7 pin adapter. This morning I went to tow my utility trailer to the dump and it didn't recognize the trailer again. It's a smaller trailer and I wasn't hauling anything heavy, but still bothered me. Is there a way to cycle through the settings to turn ON the brake controller or should it be automatically recognized? I have read about the TSB to flash the ECU on 2018 and some 2019 models but nothing comes up on my recall.

Does anyone have any recommendations on what to do? I have checked the plugs and everything seems tight and secure. Is there a ground contact for the trailer harness that I can clean?

Thanks in advance!

 

I would follow the wiring and make sure you don’t have any rodent damage to it.

On your utility trailer, do you have trailer brakes? I don’t think the vehicle will recognize a simple trailer that does not have trailer brakes.

Do you have working lights on the trailer despite now showing up in the dash that something is connected?

 

I had a similar issue with my trailer. Truck is new so I haven't towed long distance yet, but I did hook it up to set everything up and drove it around the parking lot. What I found was that the 7 pin connector on the trailer was dirty due to it being exposed to the elements. I took a screwdriver and scraped each of the connectors, then plugged it back in to the truck. Problem solved. I ordered a cover for the plug on Amazon to keep it as clean as possible. I also found that using dielectric grease helps with the connection.

 

thank you; yes I followed the wiring harness and didn’t find any obvious damage. The trailer has hydraulic brakes - but I could swear it was recognized previously as I have towed it a lot in the 4 years of ownership.
I do have working lights - just rewired the whole trailer and added brand new lights. They all work perfectly.

 

yes I cleaned the 7 pin with electrode cleaner and added dielectric grease. Thank you for the reply though. I will be ordering a cover for the plug as well.

 

Hmm. I'm stumped then. I was going to ask about the trailer wiring but you addressed that as well.

Hopefully someone on here has an idea.

 

In the truck menu where you set up the trailer, make sure you indicate that you do not have electric brakes. It may be looking for them in 2 of the corresponding pins, and that is causing the error.

 

This right here - it could be coincidental that the trailer wiring was changed and now the truck doesn't see the trailer, sure. Coincidences happen all the time!

I don't TRUST coincidences, though!

 

Thanks; I have. The trailer wasn't recognized with the old lights either. I had towed the trailer multiple times over the last couple of weeks where it wasn't recognized and changed the lights as one of the lights wasn't working. Had a spare set lying around and decided to replace them - they work perfectly.

 

This is where I am getting stumped......I navigate to the trailer menu and there is no way for me scroll through a menu. It just says trailer not recognized or something like that. There isn't a menu that i can find.....

 

hmmm...can't help you there. I have a 2023 so the menus are definitely different. And up until now I've been a Chevy guy so don't know much about previous gen Tundras. Anything on YouTube?

 

Saw that and have used it in the past; problem is that the only way to scroll through the menu is when the trailer light is green and recognized. It should be an automatic recognition of the trailer.....there is no way to manually turn it on / off

 

The only thing that I could think of is that the wiring to the 7-pin is not wired properly. Could it be that wires are not in the right connector?

 

No, i have used this 7 pin adapter exclusively and have a couple spares that I tried as well. It very well may be the fact that the utility trailer never was recognized - BUT the RV rental and lack of connection on that has me thinking that there is definitely something wrong. Like I said, the last time we rented the trailer it didn't recognize the RV and had a hell of a time getting it to work. The RV has an integrated 7 pin and the utility has a 4 pin to 7 pin adapter. I may be misremembering that the utility trailer was recognized......but the RV definitely had an issue as well.

 

OK...then the only other thing that I can think of, is that you may have connected the utility trailer directly with the 4 pin and not the 7, and that is what you remember working.

 

I have never used the 4 pin - maybe I can try that when I get home and see if it’s recognized then. I thought I remember reading somewhere that the 4 pin won’t recognize either