[Shop-talk] ABS ( was Re: Craftsman impact set and Suburban issues )

[David Hillman]

On Wed, 28 Nov 2007, Mark Andy wrote:
> A regular driver isn't going to beat good abs.  A regular driver may very
> well be able to beat crap abs.  Crap abs won't cause an accident unless
> you're already doing something wrong (IMHO).

    You might be surprised, there are some really crappy systems out there. 
Subaru has an ice-mode issue that was so bad, even up through at least the 
'03 model year, that they were forced ( by accidents and lawsuits ) to 
issue a covert recall ( they called it a 'voluntary service campaign' ) on 
their ABS controller.  If you hit a significant bump while stopping in our 
WRX, the brakes were essentially turned-off, until you got back out of 
the pedal for something like a half-second.  That's particularly uncool 
since for a decade or so now, everybody has been preaching to stand on the 
brakes, and let the car figure it out.  If you do that in ice-mode, you 
will basically coast to a stop... or be more rudely interrupted.

    A regular driver may not beat good ABS, but a good driver will tie with 
good ABS all day long.  ABS only helps when you've already screwed up, by 
definition.

    Personally, I can't get into ABS in any vehicle, unless I consciously 
try to.  After ice-racing ( without ABS obviously ) for years, 'stomp the 
brakes' isn't in my feets' vocabulary.  Now that we tripled the power in 
our iceracer, I'm developing a more gentle throttle foot, too ;)

--
  David Hillman