“Your (sic) saying i cant pump the brake like abs does?”
Yes, we are saying that you can’t pump the brakes like ABS can.
Unless you are the new incarnation of the Six Million Dollar Man, you are physically unable to pulse the brakes at the same rate as a properly-functioning ABS system.
The city will scatter sand and crushed gravel on the steep hills and all the bridges if there is frozen precipitation but most winters there is none. Lucky for me and all the other ludites here. We don’t need no stinkin ABS brakes.
And, BTW, just consider the posts on this and other automotive forums and wonder if the added expense of ABS components might greatly increase the number of automobiles operating with worn out and defective brakes. A non ABS master cylinder price of $60 requiring fairly basic skills to install vs a $300 ABS unit that requires considerable talent and experience and equipment to install. Wouldn’t a ‘proper’ non ABS system be more safe than a malfunctioning ABS? The OP’s vehicle is a Jeep Cherokee and as a matter of fact I scrapped the ABS system and retrofitted the basis master cylinder for hundreds less on a 91 Cherokee.
And what might happen if you’re involved in an accident in which other parties are injured or killed?
Assume for a moment the other party is really at fault. The ensuing investigation turns up the fact that you’ve disabled the ABS.
Who do you think will lose any civil and/or criminal matter in court?
Just something for consideration anyway.
It’s a Jeep thing…
Its all about the driver
That’s like saying you don’t need snow tires to drive in the snow…you should be able to drive around on slicks even in the worse conditions.
i dont let anybody follow me close and i always watch out for the other guy
How the heck do you do that??? I take it you live in a very rual area…No way can you do that in a densly populated area.
im thinking abs is a plus for a panicked driver on black top. Ice over 10 mph forget it.
I have lotsa faith in my driving ability. There are many risks in life. I honestly feel like abs is more of a hinderance to me than a asset.
btw ya beat on the driving on ice thing by about 5 years. and i havent hit anything
btw ya beat on the driving on ice thing by about 5 years
WOW…A whole 5 years of driving experience…Let me know when you get 30+ years…or 1,000,000 miles. Then you can tell me how much experience you have.
I’ve felt my ABS activate on my Mazda and I know for a fact I couldn’t pump the brake pedal as fast as it can. I can see why it would make someone who isn’t accustomed to it a little leery about their usage.
Peacefrog
Your statements show that you are:
over?con?fi?dent (??v?r k?n?f? d?nt)
adjective
meaning: confident without adequate reason
When people are overconfident about their driving skill, they tend to make mistakes that can be very serious. While I haven’t driven as many miles as Mike has (only a bit over 500k miles), I can honestly report that I have driven for over 475k miles/39 years without an accident.
Part of the reason for my excellent driving record is not assuming that my driving skills are superior to those of everyone else on the road, and not assuming that I know more about automotive safety than the many highly educated engineers who designed my vehicle.
When you eventually develop the maturity to realize that you don’t yet know everything, you will have learned a very valuable lesson about life.
May peace be with you.
I have been driving for a living for 50 years and have driven too many (mostly GM) vehicles with malfunctioning ABS brakes that wont let you stop at all, sometimes at low speed on bone dry roads where I have gone through a red light with the ABS buzzing on dry pavement.
Car and driver did some tests a few years ago and found that properly working ABS shortens stopping distances on all wet or snow covered roads EXCEPT FOR GLARE ICE AND FRESH FALLEN SNOW. Those are the only conditions I would want any help with.
ABS that doesn’t work, TPS monitors that even the dealers can’t make work and in 2014 mandatory back up cameras, red light cameras with shortened yellow lights to enhance revenue — Government supernanny GO AWAY.
As someone who generally detests electronic aids for driving. I see the point that you are trying to make, but in reality there are very few scenarios that you wouldn’t want ABS. The only time I can think of would be if you were off-roading and going down a very steep slope with a loose surface. But for 99.99% of driving ABS beats no ABS. And even a semi-modern ABS system can pump the brakes many times faster than you or any other human could ever hope to. If you had said you wanted a fully defeatable traction control or a fully defeatable stability control, I’d be on board with that. When on a track or when hooning both those things can be a hindrance. But ABS is something that even I would much rather have functioning at all times.
I’m not questioning your driving ability; only saying that sometimes accidents occur no matter how careful the driver is.
The accident may be entirely someone else’s fault but if an investigator, adjuster, or lawyer/law enforcement determines that a safety feature has been disabled then it will be your fault no matter what.
In the event of serious injury or death you can bet there will be an investigation.
And for what it’s worth, I consider ABS to be overrated and don’t particularly care for it either. Several current cars have it but it they were without it wouldn’t bother me one whit.
Oldtimer
You, and Peacefrog, and a few others are ignoring one very important fact, namely that ABS is not intended to shorten your stopping distance. It is designed to allow you to retain steering control under maximum braking.
Once you lose the ability to steer, your chances of hitting something increase dramatically. By giving you close-to-optimum braking power while retaining the ability to steer the vehicle, your margin of safety is improved, even if your stopping distance may be a tad longer.
By pulsing the brakes very, very rapidly (many times per minute, which is something that no human can duplicate), it applies enough braking to provide stopping power that is close to–but not equal to–the stopping power that could be achieved with full and steady application of the brakes. By staying “on the threshold” between lock-up and non lock-up, the driver retains the ability to be able to steer around objects–and that could make the difference between hitting something and not hitting something.
As to ABS that doesn’t work, I can see that this does happen, based on some of the complaints that we see on this board. However, I am now driving my 4th car with ABS, and none of them–even after 10 years and odometer mileage in the 165k+ range–ever had an ABS malfunction.
While I am sympathetic with Peacefrog, Rod Knox, and oldtimer 11, especially about the government SuperNanny, I would be too concerned with liability issues to disable the ABS. We live in a very litigious society, and if it came to light that you had deliberately disabled the system, your goose would be cooked, so to speak. Personally, I like owning a house…
Maybe a better solution would be to sell or trade the Cherokee for a vehicle not equipped with ABS?
I have a 96 Grand Cherokee, and I must say that it is a sickening sickening feeling when the ABS kicks in, the pedal sinks way down and starts vibrating and grinding violently…I must have read the page in the owners manual a dozen times where it states that it is supposed to do that, because it feels SO WRONG! If I had a heart condition, I would not want to own such a vehicle.
You dont need snow tires in the snow. However they are a good idea
I have to argue that im overconfident seeing as how i also have No accidents in my 35yrs of driving