Trailer wiring

[Manswame]

In a last ditch effort to make it up to the 49 mile hunt I installed a hitch receiver on my wife's car to pull the trailer and quad up. Now, it's a subaru *pause for laughter*. Now that we got that out of our system heres my question:

Subaru has a hidden away "tow package" harness for hooking up the trailer wiring harness. Problem is there are no stores in town that have the custom fit airing harness for a subaru. So I got the universal fit one from Lowes. It's a Reese Power tow or something like that. It's the basic 4 pole yellow, green, brown, white flat plug. The custom wiring harness for the subaru has like 9 wires running into it. I probed them and found two wires to be hot with running lights, one wire for left turn, one wire for right turn. The instructions for the universal harness says yellow to onetrunk, green to the other and brown the running lights. Can I choose either of the wires that are hot all the time to splice into for the running lights or is their any reason why there are two?

Wiring diagram is of zero help here. It shows the individual systems like stop lights, turn signals and blah blah blah but does not show the whole system with the plug.

 

[yevgenievich]

As long as wire is hot with lights on and dead otherwise should not matter which one. The only possible difference if one has different control circuit that might not be able to supply current, but without actual vehicle wiring diagrams not much else to do but try.

 

[75gmck25]

It would help to know specific year and model of Subaru, since it might make a difference.

If you have separate turn signal lights (maybe amber?) that do not come on with the brake lights, you need a converter to use it with a standard trailer where brake lights and turn signals are integrated. There are universal versions of the converters, but its usually easier to find one for your car.

Bruce

 

[Manswame]

It would help to know specific year and model of Subaru, since it might make a difference.

If you have separate turn signal lights (maybe amber?) that do not come on with the brake lights, you need a converter to use it with a standard trailer where brake lights and turn signals are integrated. There are universal versions of the converters, but its usually easier to find one for your car.

Bruce

It's a 2016 Subaru forester. I think after 2009 they pit these wiring harnesses in behind the rear side interior panel. I've figured out the turn signals and I think I'm gunna just tap into one of the wires that's always hot for the running lights. The good thing is that this is a dedicated trailer circuit so I wont be splicing into the main circuit if I do mess something up.

 

[73c20jim]

Running lights s/b brown wire, I believe.

 

[Manswame]

I was able to wire the harness up and borrowed a friend's trailer and it worked flawlessly. We went and bought our own trailer...same make and model and size...and now whenever we use the trailer it blows the 15A hazard fuse in the engine box. Lol such is life.

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