Review: Brake Buddy Select II (and Select 3) Braking Unit

When it comes to towing a vehicle behind your RV, the information gathering process can be taxing and overwhelming. You need to choose a tow bar and corresponding tow bar brackets (we went with the Roadmaster All-Terrain system and LOVE IT!), figure out your tail light diodes and - maybe most importantly - decide which auxiliary braking system you want to use. For the purpose of keeping the topic simple and reserving your sanity, we’re going to focus on that last component!

What is the Brake Buddy?
​
Built right up the road from my hometown in Olathe, Kansas, the Brake Buddy Select 2 unit is a portable, easy-to-use auxiliary braking system designed for towed (or, as they’re commonly referred to in the RV community, “toad”) vehicles. It is designed to help improve the braking performance of a towed vehicle and ensure that it stops safely and efficiently when the towing vehicle does.
​
Think of it like trailer brakes: You’ve got 3000-8000 lbs of dead weight dragging along back there and without dedicated brakes, you’re asking your tow vehicle’s brakes to stop the whole package. Not to mention the danger of momentum swinging the trailer or toad around should things become squirrely. It’s a simple machine: When braking pressure is required, the Brake Buddy actuates a pneumatic cylinder which presses the brake pedal on the toad.

What makes it unique?
​
One of the standout features of the Brake Buddy Select II and Select 3 units are their portability. Unlike permanently-affixed systems, Brake Buddy units are removed when not in use. This can be both a blessing and a curse depending on your needs. The good news is the unit is compact and lightweight, making it easy to install and remove as needed. It also has a wireless remote control, which allows for easy activation and deactivation of the system. We place the remote right on our dashboard and stow the Brake Buddy in a small undercarriage compartment when it’s not in use.
​
Another notable feature of the Brake Buddy Select II is its ability to self-diagnose any issues or malfunctions that may occur. This can help to ensure that the unit is working properly at all times and that any problems are identified and resolved quickly, which is a great thing since we had a lot of issues with our first unit!

Reliably unreliable
​
Have you ever owned something that you just knew was going to let you down at the worst possible time? In our RV life, we have had two of those: Our Onan QG5500 generator and the Brake Buddy Select II!
​
Issues with our first Brake Buddy unit began after about a year of use when we got an error immediately following a very hard stop. I pulled over and looked inside the housing where I quickly saw that the air line from the pump to the cylinder popped off. There is no real clamp on these hoses, just small zip ties. Leary of voiding my 3-year warranty, I called Brake Buddy and explained my situation. I could not open the unit myself, I was told.

As frustrating as it was to mail my unit back for such a trivial issue that I could have fixed in five minutes, rules are rules and I wanted to keep my warranty intact. Besides, Brake Buddy shipped us a loaner unit which meant we just threw ours in the box and sent it back with the return label! It took several weeks to get our machine back but the loaner was much appreciated.

We got a few months’ worth of use out of the newly-repaired unit before the same thing happened again - this time while traversing the Rockies. If you’ve ever driven down a mountain in a large vehicle you understand the importance of brakes. Suffice it to say, this was a stressful situation. This time when I called Brake Buddy, I was pretty adamant that I needed to fix the issue myself. After all, we were on top of a mountain and I wasn’t going to be stationary for a long time to receive and ship units back and forth.

The technician reluctantly agreed and I was able to repair the problem in just a few minutes by removing the screws around the bottom, splitting the case open and affixing a new zip tie to the small air hose. While I was in there, I looked around at the components to make sure nothing else needed attention. What I found was the mounts on the air pump had fallen apart allowing pretty much everything in there to just move around. This wasn’t helping keep the air lines in place.

I figured I would visit the Brake Buddy HQ once we got back to Kansas to see if they could fix the mounts. Turns out I’d have even more reasons to visit them in person because just a few weeks later the control panel began displaying errors. Then the air pump began to fail, eventually dying altogether after a few more uses. At this point we were back in the central plains so I just stowed the Brake Buddy and drove back to Kansas without toad brakes.

By this time I was pretty darn frustrated but I scheduled a visit to the Brake Buddy HQ. It’s a quick drive about an hour north of Wichita to see them in person but I hoped to get this resolved once and for all! Brake Buddy did tell me they don’t normally just have people walk in, but they seemed keen on getting this situation resolved for me and made an exception which I appreciated.

After an hour of waiting, the technician brought the unit to me and said it was fixed. Not wanting to take his word and waste a trip, I took the Brake Buddy out to the truck, hooked it up and surprisingly (or unsurprisingly, I’m not really sure) - the same error message appeared!
​
I stomped back in, handed the machine back to the tech and sat in the waiting room. He was quite apologetic and after ten or fifteen minutes he returned with a brand new Brake Buddy Select 3 unit! He said they needed to fix so many things on my Select II that it would be better to just replace it altogether and all they had were Select 3 units in stock. Admittedly, my faith in this company’s products was at an all-time low at this point but I thanked them for their service and accepted the new product.

Healing wounds with time… and a new machine

Having used the Select III unit for a couple years now, I can tell you it’s been a much more reliable product. To tell you the truth, the Select II and Select 3 are basically the same items. As far as I can tell, the only differences are that the Select 3 has adjustable height “feet” and a new “Quick Lock” clevis which is supposed to make attaching the rod to the pedal easier.
​ 
I personally don’t care for this new clevis, in fact I swapped my Select II clamp onto the Select 3 in place of the Quick Lock. In addition, the controller and all settings are identical between the Select II and Select 3, so I retained my old controller and preferences. Braking force and consistency is also identical between the models. My real hope is that the internal components have been upgraded from the Select II model, but I haven’t disassembled the Select 3 to find out if that’s the case.

Final verdict

Experts in the field of RVing and towing have long praised the Brake Buddy Select 2 unit for its performance and ease of use. It has also been recommended by several RV and towing publications as a top choice for auxiliary braking systems. As for us? Our personal experience with the Brake Buddy may have started out poorly but I have been much happier with our Brake Buddy Select 3!

Honestly, had it not been for Brake Buddy’s warranty and technical support, these closing paragraphs may have read much differently. Given the overwhelmingly-positive feedback from users online, I’m inclined to say we just got a lemon unit. When the product does work (which the Select 3 has), it works well and provides a lot of reassurance.
​
Overall, if you are in the market for an auxiliary braking system for your towed vehicle, the Brake Buddy Select 3 unit is definitely worth considering. Its portability, ease of use, and effective braking performance make it a top choice for many RVers - including the Lackeys!