Anyone flat tow their Maverick yet?

[Mills Maverick]

That sounds like a wire with zero breakers or diodes. Ask your installer what they did. MANY installers really have no clue about what is needed.

Thank you for your patience. We just called them and no diode was installed. They said you don't need one. ?? I I'm guessing what we need to do is directly hook the patriot brake to the battery. Worried the battery is still going to die though.

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[BradnChristine]

Thank you for your patience. We just called them and no diode was installed. They said you don't need one. ?? I I'm guessing what we need to do is directly hook the patriot brake to the battery. Worried the battery is still going to die though.

No thanks needed. I've towed 8-10 vehicles over a couple decades and have been through the frustrations myself as I learned.

If there is no diode, the motorhome can "TAKE" from your Maverick's battery. You are better off with NO charge wire than one that functions as a "discharge wire." The little circuit breaker is something that you can get by without, but you really must have a diode to prevent power from leaving the Maverick and going into the motorhome system.

Any brake system you have needs to always have power available to it, so NONE of the Maverick's factory outlets will serve that purpose, as they shut off...leaving your brake system un-powered. That is easily solved by running an outlet directly from the battery (a large enough cable to handle the necessary current...read your brake system manual...10 ga is good for 30A, 12 ga is good for 20A etc.

As Palms has said, you need power to charge up your brake system, and then if you discharge it, it needs to build back pressure. Those battery use "spurts" should not happen enough to discharge your battery in a day, unless you drive so badly that you are slamming on your brake system over and over...unlikely.

If you've been using the Patriot system plugged into a factory outlet, that outlet has been stopping providing power...but that would not cause you to discharge your battery. I strongly suspect the issue of battery depletion is with your charge wire. Not having a charge wire at all is better.

As you try to determine what's wrong, that might be a first step. Check the battery voltage with the charge wire disconnected, tow for an hour, then check the voltage again. It should be very similar. Don't turn the hybrid on for any of those voltage checks, because the HV battery will give you a false reading (around 14.5v). A fully charged 12v battery, at rest (no recent charging or discharging) is FULL at 12.65volts. If you ever read anything much higher, it means you are charging it with something. LiFePo4 batteries excepted.

 

[Mills Maverick]

Question, should the charge line installed go to the lithium battery or the cars 12 volt?

 

[BradnChristine]

Question, should the charge line installed go to the lithium battery or the cars 12 volt?

NEVER touch the HV battery or the orange wiring! Death awaits those who do.
Seriously, only the car's 12 volt battery needs the charge wire.

I should expand a bit, as your motorhome alternator will probably be capable of providing 100a or more (my Ford Transit has a 175A alternator).

Your charge wire (in the motorhome part) is likely fused at 20A or below. If you have a dead battery in the towed, it could try to take more than 20A. That is why an item like the Toad-Charge is good, as it has a diode to prevent reverse current leaving the Maverick, and also limits the current to 10A of charge from the motorhome...and then you needn't worry about the dead battery taking too much charge through a too-small fuse or too-small wiring.

 

[Mills Maverick]

What Toad charger do you suggest we get?

 

[BradnChristine]

What Toad charger do you suggest we get?

If you can find one, the Toad-charge that I referenced earlier with a link. I know that the inventor recently passed away and the family isn't making them at the moment. I used one of their other products, a Trik-l-charge, to keep my starter batteries charged from the MH house batteries. It was still working after 16 years in place. Their products are solid. I've moved mine from one towed to another. I'm really not sure what you can find these days, if you cannot find the Toad-Charge.

Roadmaster sells a chargewire kit that says it limits current to 15A...but says nothing about a diode, or how it limits it to 15A. It might be as simple as the 15A circuit breaker will keep resetting, or maybe they just don't note that there is a diode. Odd to me. About $31

Demco says it has a 10A version WITH a DIODE.... https://www.etrailer.com/Accessories-and-Parts/Demco/DM66VR.html That would likely be what I'd consider. Also about $31.

 

[realshelby]

I am going out on a limb and say the installed "charge wire" is not producing 12v power to the Maverick. Has this been tested? Because there is no way a coach in good condition is going to draw power from the Maverick battery when coach engine is running. Diode or not.
I am guessing the charge wire is not connected to the right posts in the coach to rv connector wiring. Or a fuse has blown in the charge wire. This is the first test I would do....confirm there is 13 volts DC or so to charge wire where it mounts to battery inside the Maverick while coach is connected and running.
The "cigarette lighter" plug is possibly another issue. These do shut off current after some time. In my Cmax I wired in a 12v cigarette lighter plug at the left kick panel that was connected directly to the 12v battery with a fuse at battery. Plugged the Patriot into that. That stopped the Patriot from running its battery down. In fact, after doing this and adding the charge wire to the Cmax battery there was never again a time I had to jump start the Cmax.
Just got my Blue Ox baseplate installed, starting on the wiring now. Sooo glad not to be fooling with the Patriot braking on the Maverick! Went with the Ready Brake system for braking and breakaway braking. Which had its own problems to solve, but once done you have so much less to do when hooking up!

 

[Palms]

I think Toad Charge and the one I used b4 are no longer available. Check it out. That’s why I had to go with the RVi. If you get a diode instead, make sure it is installed so that current only goes from the MH to the 12v. I also think you can turn on the mh and if you have a tester, verify there’s current at the 6 way end that you normally plug into the Mav. If there is, rule out the coiled cable and test where the charge cable goes to the battery. With everyone's help you will get over this.

 

[BradnChristine]

I also think you can turn on the mh and if you have a tester, verify there’s current at the 6 way end that you normally plug into the Mav. If there is, rule out the coiled cable and test where the charge cable goes to the battery. With everyone's help you will get over this.

Just to note that recent Ford Transit Vans cannot be tested at the 7-pin, or at the 6-pin end with just the cable in place and a voltmeter. Ford does some fancy stuff in its wiring to let the MH know there is a towed, and that cord MUST be plugged into the tow vehicle to see voltage there. Been there, done that. Frustrating and initially made no sense to me.

I do not know exactly how Ford gets the logic that there is something at the end of the cable, but if you just plug in the cord to the MH, then turn the MH on, you will not see the charge wire pin energized until you plug in the 6-pin end as well. Test the 7-pin outlet and you see some really odd readings without a towed connected. Mine is a Leisure Travel Van RV on a 2020 Ford Transit Chassis. I don't know what other chassis might have similar...probably just a Ford genius thing that was a pain to deal with. One of the pins had something like 4 volts when it was not connected, so I imagine that pin sent the low voltage through the taillight or left or right bulbs to find continuity, and then it enabled the voltage on the charge wire pin. Very bizzarre and overly complex to me, but I guess the Ford engineers wanted some way to tell the towing vehicle if there was something plugged in to the 7-pin.

 

[Palms]

Could very well be. I have an F53 chassis with the old V10 on a 17. If that's the case then by check the wire going to the 12v positive under the rear seat w/MH on and connected. Good info Brad.

 

[BradnChristine]

Could very well be. I have an F53 chassis with the old V10 on a 17. If that's the case then by check the wire going to the 12v positive under the rear seat w/MH on and connected. Good info Brad.

I initially thought the RV maker modified the wiring and then learned from other folks in the LTV group that it was Ford's doing when I set up my 2017 C-Max to tow. I ended up wiring the lights as normal, and just running an extra wire out of the C-Max' 6 pin socket. Then when it was all together, I found that the wire DID now show 12 volts...so I hooked it up to my Toad-Charge.

When I got home from the last tow, I did unhook the Toad-Charge from the C-Max battery, as there are status lights on it and I didn't want them to run the battery down when it wasn't needed. I will be moving the Toad-Charge to my Maverick, once I get the Demco Baseplate and get it installed...and probably add a switch to turn it off when not towing this time.

 

[Palms]

That's why I added the switch to the Rvi although there are only two leds that are "supposed" to turn off after a while. Taking no chances.

 

[realshelby]

Very bizzarre and overly complex to me, but I guess the Ford engineers wanted some way to tell the towing vehicle if there was something plugged in to the 7-pin.

The Ford system will tell you when a connection is bad or a light is out on the towed vehicle. Actually useful tech!

 

[BradnChristine]

The Ford system will tell you when a connection is bad or a light is out on the towed vehicle. Actually useful tech!

Yes, but us simple old-timers have to learn these newfangled things the hard way.

 

[Mills Maverick]

I am going out on a limb and say the installed "charge wire" is not producing 12v power to the Maverick. Has this been tested? Because there is no way a coach in good condition is going to draw power from the Maverick battery when coach engine is running. Diode or not.
I am guessing the charge wire is not connected to the right posts in the coach to rv connector wiring. Or a fuse has blown in the charge wire. This is the first test I would do....confirm there is 13 volts DC or so to charge wire where it mounts to battery inside the Maverick while coach is connected and running.
The "cigarette lighter" plug is possibly another issue. These do shut off current after some time. In my Cmax I wired in a 12v cigarette lighter plug at the left kick panel that was connected directly to the 12v battery with a fuse at battery. Plugged the Patriot into that. That stopped the Patriot from running its battery down. In fact, after doing this and adding the charge wire to the Cmax battery there was never again a time I had to jump start the Cmax.
Just got my Blue Ox baseplate installed, starting on the wiring now. Sooo glad not to be fooling with the Patriot braking on the Maverick! Went with the Ready Brake system for braking and breakaway braking. Which had its own problems to solve, but once done you have so much less to do when hooking up!

We towed our ford edge for 7 years prior to this maverick with zero problems so the motorhome charge line is not the problem. We had already tested the charge wire at the battery in the maverick and there is 13+ volts going into the maverick from the charge line. Installing a 12v plug directly to the battery today. But this will only insure the brake doesn't shut off. The battery going dead is so going to happen. Maybe the charge line isn't connected to the proper spot in the maverick? It was installed by a commercial place but who knows!

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