My wife and I decided to trade in our 2005 Ford Explorer Sport Trac.

We loved our old 2005 Sport Trac.  We got it new for a song because it was a 4.0 liter V6 with no options to speak of, and we added a bunch of aftermarket accessories, including step bars, a bed cover, cruise control, remote keyless entry, and an MP3 player.  We used it to pull our camper (a 19' Jayco Jay Flight travel trailer) to many a campground.  I loved this truck, and trading it in was hard.

My wife had been wanting something with a little more room (thinking about growing the family a little more) so we were looking at trading in our 2006 Hyundai Sonata on a minivan of some kind.  The problem is, we owe way more on my car than it's worth.  We'd take a bath if we traded it in.  And then, while we were browsing the local Ford lot, inspiration struck.  They had a beautiful 2007 Ford Explorer Ironman XLT with only 17,000 miles on it, having been a Ford company car for the first year of its life.  It had third row seating, in-dash navigation, DVD entertainment center, and a bunch of other options the other truck didn't have.  For me, the selling point was the 4.6 liter V8 and class III/IV towing package.  That will make life a lot easier with the camper.  And since the trade-in value on the Sport Trac was more than we owed, it made sense to make that our trade-in.

So here's the new truck...

One of the benefits of the towing package is that it's supposedly pre-wired for a brake controller, which is a must when you're pulling a heavy trailer like our camper.  So one of the first things I looked for was the plug for hooking up my brake controller.  I stuck my head under the dash and looked and looked, but couldn't find it.  Some Internet forums suggested I look behind the glove compartment, and it wasn't there either.  So I finally ended up taking it to the dealer's service center, and, after having to look it up, they showed me how to find it.  So in the hope that this will help somebody Googling for it, allow me to illustrate...

Find the seam in the dash panels just to the left of the e-brake...

And then reach up directly behind that seam.  You're looking for a small gray plug clipped to the metal frame behind the dash.  Here's the view from under/behind the dash (between the e-brake and brake)...

So there you have it!  Hope you find it easier than I did!