There are connectors that provide both. The assembly I used accepts the 4-pin that was already there, and just converts it to 7-pin. What I personally use is an adaptor that takes the 7-pin and converts it back to 4-pin like this one: amzn.to/2WSqMly
Nice Video: Quick question - if you are connecting your green wire from the cable in the front of the vehicle to ground, are you then running it to the white cables at the back of the vehicle, which are ground also? If both are ground, do you really need the green wire connected to ground in the front of the vehicle? And I'm guessing that the white wire in the cable that you have going down a hole in the frame at the front of the vehicle does not connect with anything?
It is totally possible to use the frame as the ground vs. running that wire as well. I had a secondary motive in that I wanted to have the wiring available to put an inverter and subwoofer amplifier back there so the extra wire would provide clean power and ground for that. Yes, the white wire is unused currently but could be used for these alternate loads in the future.
Thanks so much for the video, I just completed the install and it went smoothly once I figured out the route. I managed to suspend the wire/housing with zip ties along the way, however your method with clamps is more secure. I purchased a 4-7 pin converter like you have, but it didn't come with the breakers or long power wire. I should have gotten the complete kit as I had to track down wire/breakers on my own.
The blue wire would go to a wired under-dash brake controller. The Prodigy controller handles that directly on the trailer. The trailer harness plugs into the frame-mounted Prodigy, then a separate connector goes to the tow vehicle. So for this wireless installation the blue wire doesn't go anywhere. Make sense?
Thanks for video. My Lexus RX SUV has a 12 volt accessory plug in the trunk so I just tapped into that wire to get 12 volts. Then poked wire down through trunk where spare tire is.
Hey Dan, so just so I understand, by using a wireless brake controller you don't have to worry about installing anything in the cabin by the brake line? Also, do you need to worry about this draining the battery at all?
Yes! No wiring needed to the 'brake' wire on the trailer connector. The Prodigy controller is mounted on the trailer and the 'remote' is a user interface you plug in when towing. The remote only shows the current value (intensity) of the braking, and lets you both set the value as well as manually apply the brakes. I will say that there is occasionall times when the wireless connection shows NC meaning no connection, but that is typically brief. This doesn't change the braking however, because the control is all on the trailer end, it would just keep you from manually applying the brake when not connected. No big deal in my experience because once you have it set up, it just works automatically and I don't find myself doing much with the remote but looking at it when braking... I have that Prodigy controller listed in the description. Oh, and I haven't had any issues with the battery being drained. It likely just turns on when the vehicle is connected because it does need the 12V, 30A connection at the connector.
I agree with two other commenters. The 7-blade Vehicle plug is pre-wired with 12, or 16 gage wires; but he has you spend a fortune to purchase and 8/3 gage heavy duty cable rated for over 40 amps; where the Vehicle plug is only 10ga or 16ga rated for 30A or 25A.
My only point there was to install a heavy-duty armored cable that could properly carry 30A and was readily available on Amazon. I used the 4-conductor myself because I wanted extra conductors for either trunk-mounted inverter or sub-woofer in the future. You could also argue that you can just run a single conductor and use the frame as the ground return.
Great video and helps a lot as I will probably purchase a Highlander soon to tow our 17 foot 3,300 lb Forest River. Had no idea there was a hand held remote brake controller.! Have you found your Highlander capable at pulling your camper trailer? Thanks for the video.
I have no problem with my Hi-Low. Yah, the prodigy brake controller makes the installation easier. I will say that just yesterday, after studying the electrical diagrams, it appears that the trailer harness in the back includes a wire that is fused at 30Amps, so perhaps the extra power run wasn't needed? I haven't opened up the panels to check the wire gauge at the back to confirm. Nobody seems to use this, or offers a 7-pin adaptor that utilizes this for some reason... Not sure why not which has me suspicious that it really what's needed, but why 30A then??
Hey John, have you had a chance to purchase the Forest River yet? I'm considering a 3,300lb trailer as well and wondered if you have experiences to share.
@@DansWay Hello, We purchased the Forest River and towed it with an 06 Trailblazer. Due to the difficulty purchasing new Toyota's and prices on old ones we decided to hold off on purchase of a Highlander. Hoping next stpring either a Highlander of SequoiaL
@@DansWay Hi Dan, I'm in the same boat. We are looking to purchase a 3300lbs travel trailer to tow with our new 2021 Highlander XSE AWD. I will give you some update hopefully in a few weeks. I'm sure it will do fine but my concern is mainly going over the grade in the Sierra Nevada here in California. How heavy is your trailer and how well does it tow going uphill with your 3rd gen Highlander?
@@reempire888 I would say you shouldn't have a problem with 3300lbs on the Highlander. I would love it if the gears were tuned for lower speed driving. There are lots of gears meant to freeway speeds vs. 30-55mph range when towing. Definitely use anti-sway and load-distribution bars and tune them for your loading of the trailer. Keep in mind that carrying water for your trip can significantly modify the load distribution and tong weight of the trailer. Mine has the water up front, so if I carry water I have to adjust the setting on the bars to compensate.
It can go to the frame of the car, it doesn't have to have a separate wire all the way back to the battery. The black wire goes to the battery through a 30A fuse. As long as a meter reads 12V when you measure between the white and black wires you are good.
So the trailer get's power from the car battery whether the car is ON of OFF? That doesn't seem right? Thanks for the video. We have a 2008 Highlander with the towing package and I'm trying to figure all this out.
Curious if you've had any issues with the location of the 7 pin connector being mounted lower than the hitch receiver. I've read that it sits too low on the highlanders and sometimes bottoms out.
I haven’t bottomed it out myself. If you off-road without the trailer or hitch, then it would be the first thing hit as it does reduce the exit angle a bit, but there is still a lot of clearance. If you are worried just leave the hitch mounted in the receiver so it would be the first thing to scrape.
There are many hitches you can get. Mine came with it, so I don't have an exact part number I can find on it. Looking at Amazon, there are two major types available. The more modern type uses a square bar like this one: amzn.to/3kREei9 The older style, the one I have is like this one: amzn.to/3qR6lBZ Either of these need to be installed and tuned to your trailer. Best to get help if you haven't done this yourself and understand how it all works.
@@DansWay , Thank for your immediate response, I'm very appreciated, and for the links , definitely will explore some of them . Safety first of all)) 😉🤝👍
I don't think 10ft is quite enough, but I would measure the run as best as you can to confirm before spending the extra money on the longer length. You can also purchase custom lengths at Home Depot or other big-box store.
I'm new to hauling larger trailers and have never had a 7-wire harness. I'm not clear on several points w.r.t. the brake controller - was wondering if you could help here? * Why use a brake controller, instead just connect to something that reflects braking action on the vehicle (i.e. connect to the power signal that turns on car's brake lights)? * If using the brake controller, how is the sending unit determining that brakes are being applied? Thanks!
The key thing about a modern brake controller is that it measures (with an accelerometer) how fast you are trying to decelerate and ‘helps’ by applying the trailer brakes gently or hard depending on the need. If you only had on/off control it would be either jerky when you just barely push in the brakes or not powerful enough when you really are slamming on them. The sending unit also has a variable trigger or button that lets you manually apply the trailer brakes which is helpful in some situations vs using the vehicle brakes at all. The trailer pulls back on the truck when just the trailer brakes are applied.
Thanks for the video very detailed. I'm exploring to rent a trailer, but wasn't sure the max weight for it. The SUV is rated for 5000lbs, but that's unloaded. How heavy is your trailer? Thanks
Glad it was helpful! My high-low is nearly 4000lbs, so just because it doesn't have a huge wind profile, it still is heavy. The Highlander pulls it great however with the 300hp it offers. I would like to have more mid-range gears, but it definitely pulls no problem.
Thank you so much for this. We just bought a camping trailer and realize that we need to do this on our 2020 HiHy. Probably a really stupid question ... but the wire from the battery port goes where? All the way to the 7pin connection at the back or to the 30a breaker?
Sure, I’m not sure my method here would be best for that. The holes and brackets themselves could rot out. I guess I would run the wire through the interior, in which case I would get standard single stranded wire vs. the armored wire I used for the outside. You can run the wire along the drivers side, under the door trims up to the footwell, then through the firewall. Let us know how it comes out!
Thanks-good video. Gotta do this for my 09 Highlander. I may have more questions, but the first one is how did you connect the reverse light wire? My Scamp 13 has a reverse bulb on it's tail lights but I guess it's sort of optional.
You will have to tie into the rear brake lights to enable backup lights and connect it to the Yellow connection on the 7-pin setup. I didn't bother as my trailer doesn't support this right now. Basically you need to connect to the tail-light cable harness which you can access from the inside back of the drivers side rear light assembly and route the wire down to the 7-pin behind the trim inside. Oh, and I installed a backup camera which lets me see back there 100% of the time, so the backup light was even less needed. I DO understand this is needed for traffic situations where the lights would indicate to others that I'm backing up... I'll get to it...
Great video Dan and thanks for sharing. I just installed the 7 pin and factory wire harness and all went smoothly. Last step is the battery connection but I was a little confused about which specific connections you are making up by the battery. Would you be willing to describe this last step in a little more detail? Just want to make 100% sure I'm making the proper connections. Thank you!
For instance, are you just connecting the black wire to the black wire in the back on the 7 pin? And then up front where are each of the 3 wires connecting? thanks
Sorry about being vague on the steps. The battery positive connection goes directly to one side of the fuse. The second side of the fuse goes all the way to the back seven pin connector. You can ground the return ground at the back to the frame, or connect it to the frame or battery negative up in the engine compartment. I chose to do this, because I also plan on adding a subwoofer in the trunk, and wanted a separate clean ground for that.
@@DansWay Okay thanks Dan I think that makes sense. Love the subwoofer idea btw. For my needs I just need the power from the battery for my trailer and break controller. Wondering....in this case could I get away with just one wire, as opposed the the three you are using? And just ground the 7 pin to the chassis back there? Am I understanding this right? Many thanks, Dave
Hi Dan, we had one of these installed on our Highlander by a travel trailer dealership that went out of business during the pandemic. During our last trip, all of our lights went dark: running lights, brake lights and turn signals. I have checked all connections and ground wires and everything looks good. I have no idea where to look for the fuse(s) for the wiring harness. Could you please tell me where to look?
@@DansWay I found one fuse in the box under the hood that was marked "Tow" and the diagram showed it should have a 30 amp fuse in it; there was only a 10, but it wasn't blown. I did put a 30 amp fuse in just to see if the lights would work, and they didn't.
Did you have any issues with the 7-way bracket hitting the trim that came with the OEM Hitch receiver ? It is called the LH Fascia Trim? I’m wondering if the new slotted holes helps alleviate this problem?
Great video, very helpful. I have a 2021 Highlander Hybrid that I need to do this for. You mentioned yours is a 30amp wire to the 7-pin connector, do you know if that is standard, or might it be different for a hybrid? It's hard to find anyone at Toyota who understands this...
The 30A value is just the standard expected capability of the connection as this also charges the battery when connected. I wouldn't expect the hybrid to make any difference as you are still just connecting to the 12V battery which is separate from the high-voltage battery.
My father-in-law is trying to convert his 2021 Highlander (Non Hybrid). I would love to know where you ended up on this. Local trailer store said they couldn't do the conversion because the voltage wasn't right. Sounds like maybe they didn't have the right kit.
@@JeffHesterDesigns I don't know, I took it to a trailer hitch specialty shop and they installed the hitch and the 7 pin connector, and set up a wireless brake controller... keep searching, I guess...
I ran into some difficulties. Once you connected to the 4-pin, your video cuts to the point where you had already made the other connections and had already run the cable to the front. I didn’t see what you did with the white, blue and yellow wires in the back of the vehicle. I assumed that the blue and yellow can be capped off. I attached the white to the vehicle frame. Up front, I connected the black wire from the back of the vehicle to the silver terminal on the breaker then made a direct 8-gauge wire connection from the battery positive terminal to the breaker brass (?) terminal. I attached the green to the frame. Now, the vehicle won’t start. No idea why. Maybe I shorted something out? Maybe you might know based on the information I just provided. Thanks.
Is there a reason why you ran the ground all the way up front? Could you have just grounded it closer to the back? If so would that just mean that we’d only need to run one wire to the front?
I think that is correct. I plan to add a subwoofer to the back area so a multi-conductor wire that is nicely armored seemed like a good idea. A separate ground wasn’t exactly necessary but would provide a cleaner ground for audio purposes.
Mr. Holt, What did you do with the remaining white wire you looped into that hole? I didn’t see you secure it in the video in the engine bay under the plastic covers when you secured the green cable as your ground? The white cable from the 4 way to 7 way is grounded to the chassis at the rear correct but what about the white cable in the front? Also 2nd part to my question, you just used a 12g feeder wire from the battery to the 30A breaker correct?
The white wire was not used at all at the front or rear. At the back, the green wire was connected to the white wires. Sorry I didn't show that more clearly. I figured I'd use the spare white wire for powering an amp or subwoofer, or even an inverter installed in the rear area some day...
@@DansWay thanks for the quick response. In the market for a Geo Pro and needed this video explanation to complete my 7-way connection! If I have anymore questions I will ask here in the comments sir!
@@DansWay So, with a wired controller that white wire would go to the controller? What you did was to use one wire to supply the battery charge and B+ to the wireless controller on the trailer? That means you could have just run a single wire instead of a 3x cable if you also utilized a ground at the rear frame location?
I drilled it out, and most likely used a #12 screw. Just keep in mind that this thing could get hit at some point so make it substantial enough to hold.
What size drill bit did you upgrade the holes to? I had same issue with the pre-drilled holes not lining up? Also did you have any issue with your bracket being in the way of the left fascia trim that came with the OEM hitch receiver?
The prodigy controller is wireless from the user-interface, so the controller installs on the trailer, and the hand-held interface goes in the truck, plugged into a 12V outlet. The interface lets me manually set the brake and the braking sensitivity. It also display the current braking level on the display. The controller on the trailer is measuring the g-forces and can 'sense' how hard the truck is applying the brakes and helps by applying the trailer brakes.
Hey@Grant Taylor , So I'm trying to understand your comment. Are you saying that the 7-pin wasn't needed because I didn't install a brake controller on the Highlander? In my case, the Prodigy wireless controller is mounted to the trailer and the 7-pin is providing the power to the brakes and charging the battery. You could also mount a wired controller in the cab and use the 7-pin connector as well.. I hope this help...
@@user-ep7lk8ty3h The breaker needs to be securely mounted, but doen't have to be mounted to metal. Just best practice considering the vibration and loading of the wires on the breaker. The Blue wire goes to a wired under-dash brake controller if you are installing one. I chose instead to use the following wireless system by Prodigy: geni.us/Prodigy_brake_control. It works quite well.
No offense but all it has to do is let people behind you know you're stopping or turning plus too bright a light bulb is will get you a citation for a glaring light which can be dangerous! Just saying!
