How do you Brake Hold

When I am launching boat, often in and out of the vehicle multiple times. Each time you open door or take the seat belt off the brake hold turns off. And I say that sadly.

 

Yeah, I tested it out the other day. Brake hold doesn't work in reverse, sadly. So, it's really no benefit for launching a boat.

If you're in and out of your truck multiple times when launching, the auto e-brake is probably your best friend.

 

This is pretty slick - I didn't know this one. I'll have to try this out. It would be helpful for me when just reaching in the truck to start without awkwardly having my foot on the brake while outside the truck and not getting completely in the cab yet. I do this every morning.

 

Even if brake hold did work in reverse, I'd be pretty nervous to get out of the truck with it still in gear. Maybe I've seen too many boat ramp fail videos........

Also, the manual says it may not hold on a steep incline so even Toyota doesn't trust it in all situations.

 

Some of the best laughs me and my buddies have are watching the antics at a busy boat ramp. It never ceases to amaze us how many boat owners have no clue how to back down a ramp and launch a boat properly. Then, watching them try to load their boats back onto the trailer is even funnier.

I know we were all rookies at one time. But take your damn boat to an empty parking lot and figure out how to back it up before you embarrass yourself at a busy boat ramp.

 

Knew of the brake hold feature, but never tried it until this thread.
Have been using it now for a couple weeks. Long stop lights, waiting in lines, etc.
Can live just fine without it, but it works well enough.

 

Yup. Over the years I have given the kids of my fishing buddies two pieces of advice, marry rich and learn how to back a trailer with just your mirrors. They're still working on getting rich but all of them can handle themselves at the ramp

 

So true. I have one buddy who never learned to use his mirrors. He can back a trailer up well, but he has to do the awkward twist and look thru the rear window thing. Now that he's getting older, that maneuver is getting difficult for him. So, I usually man the truck, while he mans the helm.

 

I like to use the rear roll down window as well sometimes, it's a nice option, but I will say the 360 camera system on these trucks is awesome, really makes it easier.

I can get the ball right under the mount perfectly, then lower the rear air down to hitch up, good stuff.

I have never tried that straight back up system it has though, I just drive it

 

Yes, the rear camera is nice for hitching up, but that's really the only time I use any of the camera views. I turned all the parking assist stuff off. It was more distracting than useful to me.

I watched a video on that auto backup system right after I bought my truck. I concluded I can back a trailer up far better myself.

 

The Straight Path Assist is a fricking joke. It does work, but if the trailer starts going a way you don't want, you still need to know how to make the right correction. The engineers should have spent development time for this on making a gas gauge that doesn't reset......

 

I've been meaning to try it, just out of curiosity, but I always forget to set up my trailers in the system.

It appears you have to have the truck and trailer in a perfectly straight line AND have them line up with your target trailer destination. At that point, why not just back it up yourself?

Seems pretty gimmicky to me.

 

Here's what I learned when I tried it out of curiosity at the boat ramp....

If your trailer is aligned with a path that will take it straight down the ramp but your truck is still at an angle to the trailer, the system will align the truck with the trailer and keep the trailer going in the direction you last pointed it. Actually kind of cool to have that happen with your hands off the wheel. BUT..... as most of us know, the trailer is never perfectly aligned and corrections need to be made and this is where the system becomes useless because you still need to know how to make the correction. Plus it's a pain to turn on. You need to have your trailer selected (which I never remember to do) then you have to turn it on with the button on the dash, then you need to touch the right spot on the screen to finally activate it. By the time I do all that, I can have the boat in the water... And I almost forgot to mention you have to go through a bunch of one time preliminary steps to set up the system in the first place.

I wonder if they were trying to keep up with Ford and that ridiculous knob they have on the dash?

 

Thanks for run down.

I do recall from the video I watched that the preliminary setup was ridiculously complex. When the dude finally got it all setup, then tried to back an average sized trailer thru an open fence, he nearly took out one of the fence posts. LOL!

It might be cool, if you could define exactly where you wanted the trailer to end up, and it would automatically correct both truck and trailer to put you there. As it is, it seems pretty useless to me.

 

its more phucking around that its worth matt, just skip it. I tried to set-up my trailer once for the blind spot thing , it didnt work for shit, it would not get the length right or work very well, etc

I do really like the 360 cameras though, use them every time I drive and great for tighter spaces with that overhead shot, and tap the view button to flick on the front camera pulling into a tight area (like my fishing camp within a bunch of trees, etc,) works great.

Im all for things to helps folks maneuver a trailer, but part of owning one boat, camper, any kind of trailer is knowing how to drive the damn thing on your own. When you first start out its challenging, especially backing until you get some experience, we were all there once.

 

Instead of your foot, you can press the brake pedal with your left hand and then the start button with your right hand. I used to do the foot thing, but switch to my hand. I sometimes start the truck to get the A/C going before opening the back door to let the dog up. Dog has memory preset 2 which slides the seat all the forward.