ABS is so common these days,many cars come ABS equipped you have no choice. My question would you rather have the ABS or spend the money on a much better set of tires. The OEM tires on many new cars/trucks definetly cant be called “preminum”.Myself I take the tires no question. Your thoughts gentelmen. My opinion may influenced by the fact that ABS never “saved” me. I drive appropriate for the conditions.
Not a chance, one of the reasons I drive older cars is to avoid ABS, traction control, air-bags, and other so-called safety features. If this stuff was optional, I might consider owning a newer car (but probably not). ABS equipped motorcycles are particularly silly, if you need ABS on your motorcycle it’s time to hang it up and go buy a buick.
Tell me you face slippery winter conditions and have had a chance to drive a car with ABS. Obviously, tires make a huge difference; but why is it either/
or. Like seat belts or air bags.
I’ll vote for good tires AND ABS…
Well, ABS saved my butt a couple of times.
Once while braking on a downhill snow covered street doing about 20 MPH. Just touched the brakes and the ABS started kicking in. At the bottom of the hill, a snow plow starts heading up the hill like a bat outta hell! The street we were on was just wide enough to clear the plow blade and snow bank. If you have control of the vehicle! The ABS allowed me to maintain control of the vehicle where I could pass by the snow plow. Without ABS, there would have been no way to maintain control of the vehicle.
The other incident was on the freeway on a rainy morning. Everybody is cruising at speed when all of a sudden brake lights start coming on about ten cars ahead. I see cars smashing into the rear end of other cars. So what do you do? You slam on the brakes! Only the ABS allowed me to crank the wheel over to the sane-lane where missed the corner of the vehicle in front of me by an inch. The cube van behind me didn’t have ABS, so it ran into the back of the vehicle I just missed.
ABS doesn’t shorten stopping distance. I allows the driver to still steer the vehicle when their foot is firmly planted on the brake pedal during a panic stop.
Tester
ABS is okay.
However I really want electronic stability control which is essentially the next gyration of ABS. I think that feature can save your skin especially in winter conditions.
Yeah sure I have driven with ABS. Switzerland,Montana,Wisconsin,plenty of snow/ice driving experience. The question was hypothetical “if you could only have one or the other”. The point really was how can manufactures be motivated to equip their cars with better OEM tires,when there is only so much money allowed to be put in a car so that a certain profit margin be maintained. I just happen to believe that putting the finite amount of money available into ABS is not the best place to spend it.
I like the non-ABS brakes for their ease of bleeding. I can bleed the brakes with a piece of rubber hose and a box wrench.
Yup, in addition to being very annoying for the driver, ABS is definitely not DIY friendly. Each of these “improvements” makes vehicles more expensive and effectively shortens their life (by making them too expensive to maintain/repair as they get older). If I was interested in selling lots of replacement vehicles, i would be bolting on as much of this stuff as possible.
I can take it or leave it. There aren’t many cars available without ABS these days, so it’s hard to avoid. If the ABS computer ever failed, and the replacement was expensive, I’d consider not fixing it and just living with non-ABS brakes. I drove for 30 years before I ever had a car with ABS and never had a problem.
ABS isn’t what bothers me about newer cars. The safety “feature” I wish you could delete and save the money is airbags. I never drive without my seat belt, and don’t feel that airbags are doing me any good, but I have no choice, I have to buy them.
I don’t mind the ABS, but all these airbags are adding complexity and cost that most of us will never use.
At least you can just pull the plug on the air-bags and you don’t have to worry about them going off in your face.
I always said no ABS, air bags, traction control for me. But after driving on midwest prairie ice, snow and black ice I enjoy the ABS. My car also has traction control and IMOO it’s the next best thing to AWD w/out having AWD. But I cannot say it’s either/or.
I wish they’d not put ABS on trucks, although they are better than they once were. I had a buddy with a 3/4 ton Dodge/Cummins once who loaded 8 head of cattle in a stock trailer, got in the truck and started it to leave. The truck was aimed up hill with the trailer aimed down hill. When he started it the truck started rolling backwards because the ABS was reading pressure and was set to pump long before he got enough pressure on the brakes to hold the load. With the rig rolling backwards, putting the transmission (6 speed standard) in a forward gear wasn’t possible because of the lockouts. His trailer brakes didn’t work in reverse either. The load yanked the helpless truck over a small cliff killing several of the cattle, totaling the truck and trailer, and in general making a mess.
With a load behind a pickup, ABS is a pain in the rear. They all have it today, so not much you can do about it but bitch.
Skipper
With a load behind a pickup, ABS is a pain in the rear. They all have it today, so not much you can do about it but bitch.
Can’t you just pull the fuse or disconnect it?
I’m not sure, I never tried to do it. I know theres a distribution box of a thing involved that’s got brake lines running everywhich where. It looks something like a 4 cylinder injector pump. I’d immagine unplugging it would screw that up somehow or other, but I don’t know.
Skipper
I suspect that someone on a specific forum for your truck would know exactly how to make the ABS disappear.
I’m not worried about them going off in my face, I just think they are an unnecessary “feature,” If you fasten your seat belt there is no need for airbags. The whole point of airbags is to protect people who are too stupid to protect themselves by fastening their seat belts. Why should the rest us pay the price for those stupid people?
I agree that I don’t want to pay for something I don’t want/need, but they also make me uncomfortable. The last thing I want/need is some silly air-bag deploying due to a minor accident, and I certainly don’t want the stupid thing causing $2K worth of damage to my car as a result of a fender bender.
I can do ya one better Craig, one with an AIRBAG:
http://powersports.honda.com/motorcycles/touring_sport_touring/model.asp?ModelName=Gold+Wing+Airbag&ModelYear=2008&ModelId=GL18B8
I know, I laughed my ass off when I first saw that. If I ever get old enough to want a gold wing, somebody please shoot me (or just direct me to the nearest buick dealer… same thing).
I found it hilarious too. You’d think there’d be seatbelts on motorcycles before airbags.