royk

I hope someone on this forum can help confirm this.

Was at my trailer shop this morning trying to have an aftermarket brake controller installed in my '06 LX. After the shop was unsuccessful in locating a plug for the controller harness under the dash, which is where they usually find it in other Toyota SUV/trucks, I placed a call to Lexus service and was told that the brake controller was built-in.

Is this true?

They also checked the wiring diagram with a technician, and the parts department also confirmed that no such aftermarket controller exists in their computer for the LX 470.

Apparently Ford is doing the same thing with some products in its line of pickups/SUVs but I didn't realize that Lexus is already on board with this. If the technician/service advisor are right, then the brakes' computer brain automatically detects the presence of a trailer when it's plugged into the 7-pin socket by the receiver and will make adjustments, including gain, automatically when braking.

I hope they're right! Otherwise my M3 track car is going to end up in my backseat one of these days!

Traturn

Brake controller wire out of a GX 470 82132-60110

just a connector with pigtail and wiring details.

V8_Fan

Factory electrical manual for the '03 LX says the brake controller is built-in, located somewhere up under the driver's dash behind the area behind the wiper switch. Only thing that bothers me about the design of the trailer plug is the power directly from the battery. There was one guy who had a battery on his trailer run when the car was off. Some way, it was able to siphon power from the car battery, discharging it. The safer way is to install some kind of solenoid that triggers when the car engine is on. Therefore, when the engine is off, the car battery will be physically isolated from the trailer. I'm thinking a diode/isolator might have too much of a voltage drop whereas a solenoid won't. If the trailer is passive (no battery plugged into its lighting system), I think the stock system is okay.