The biggest financial mistake you can make is putting your hard-earned money into an inferior product. That goes for everything from stocks to coffee to car tow dollies.

There are certain things that make a car tow dolly an inferior product, but none more so than the lack of hydraulic disc brakes. Having this kind of stopping power is an absolute necessity if you plan on pulling anything of value behind your truck or RV.

Read on to find out exactly why your car tow dolly needs hydraulic disc brakes, and how they can help save your investment from a crash—both financially and physically.

Stopping Power

Disc brakes are highly superior to standard padded brakes and provide much more power to stop heavier loads. Here’s an article on the popular car research website Edmunds.com about the differences between disc brakes and drum brakes.

It says that while drum and disc brakes have both advanced greatly in the past twenty years, the disc brake is far and away the better of the two: “Today’s front disc brakes are truly exceptional in terms of stopping power.”

And it’s more than the brake mechanism itself that requires high-quality components. You need a full brake system that meets the rigorous requirements of a car tow dolly laden with thousands of pounds of weight.

Even Braking

Hydraulic disc brakes are so advanced these days that you can rest assured of their performance. That performance includes the ability to evenly apply pressure to brake rotors, preventing them from wearing unevenly. It also enables both wheels to experience the same pressure; one wheel won’t get too much friction while the other wheel gets too little, an event that could overturn a dolly.

Because of these features, disc brakes have a decided advantage over drum brakes, especially when you’re towing thousands of pounds and don’t want to put that extra strain on your towing car’s brakes. In fact, you shouldn’t. Putting that much weight on your car tow dolly without an adequate brake system is a dangerous situation, and it could cause unwanted consequences.

The Acme Difference

The Acme Tow Dolly Company put forth hundreds of thousands of dollars to design and build the perfect tow dolly. Perhaps the biggest feature comes in the form of fully vented double vanes, which is a huge step up from standard flat-walled rotors. A vane design allows for maximum cooling under intense heat, without sacrificing stopping power.

Better yet, the design has put the brake pads in clear view so you always know exactly how they look under the heaviest duress. Plus, it makes brake replacement and cleaning much easier.

What Can Happen Without Hydraulic Disc Brakes?

If you’re still not sold on the positive aspects of hydraulic disc brakes, heed this example to learn how they can save more than a few feet of stopping distance.

Say you’ve hooked up your new car tow dolly to the back of your truck or RV and you plan on taking your Jeep Wrangler across the country to North Carolina’s Outer Banks. On the way you stop at Smoky Mountain National Park, among the busiest of all the national parks.

The road winds back and forth and up and down the mountainside, and it’s packed to the max with tourists piled in cars with luggage strapped to the top. The 35 mph road crawls at about 10 mph, since the road is so crowded. At one point, a bunch of cars pull off the road at a waterfall and you see an opportunity to get a bit of wind in your hair. The road turns suddenly, catching you off guard. You slam on the brakes to make the turn, but the pressure in your inferior dolly fails since the brake rotors have overheated from your miles of riding the brakes through the park. They weren’t double vented and double vaned.

This might be a dramatic scene, but it’s entirely possible. If you’re carrying too much weight for your brake’s capabilities, you could put yourself in a dangerous situation, especially in terrain where normal brake systems would be taxed extra hard.

Make the right choice and opt for hydraulic disc brakes over traditional drum brakes.