ABS USELESS IN SNOW!

WOW.... absolutely unbelievable. Worse than my imprezza ever was (which was VERY bad).

ABS activates while wheels are 2" from pavement. Will not let the wheels dig down at all... I went over 100' w/o any contact with the pavement until the last 10' with 2 spots that dug in. I tried 4 times .. up hill down hill (the worst!) and level. HORRID results.

Any way to disable this DANGEROUS system w/o the dash lamp staying on all the time. An on and off switch would be a really useful thing...

Fuse with wiring bypass? I only want to disable the ABS not the speedo etc.

****** PLEASE no debate on if ABS is good or bad ******

I just need a solution to disable the ABS for the snow/ice/loose gravel situations. thanks.

 

I here you! On my '98 I just pulled two fuses and ignored the lights in the dash cluster. I haven't check the new one yet, but I believe they may have a similar configuration.

 

I don't believe that is the ABS works.

ABS senses slippage (lack of traction) and then modulates the brakes to keep the wheel turning.

ABS is more to allow you to steer the vehicle in low traction/panic stop situations than to make you stop faster or shorter.

If you hit the brakes on 2" of snow ABS has no way of knowing that if it would just lock up the brakes until it dug through the 2" of snow it would have sufficient traction to slow down.

As far as not working as well as your Imprezza there are way too many variables to compare the two...ABS system, tire size, tire pressure, tread style, rubber compound, vehicle weight, vehicle weight distribution, wheelbase, etc. etc. etc.

 

You are not telling me anything new... I know all about ABS.. Thanks. The Impreza has horrid ABS.. The trucks seems to have OK ABS on dry pavement and even wet pavement to a point...

I need to know how to shut it off. Not a lecture on how helpful it is keeping me going down my driveway able to steer but not stop thank you very much...

This thread is not to talk about the pros or cons but HOW to disable it when the conditions dictate the need to disable it for safety reasons.

Any help with a 2006 would be greatly appriciated... Thanks..

 

Not trying to lecture anybody on ABS. I only offered the explanation as it's often misunderstood by many people and since the thread title is "ABS useless in snow" I think it was entirely appropriate.

Good luck.

 

Pull the fuses as I stated in previous post. If it works the same as in my '98, the ABS light will come on in the dash cluster and brakes will "work normally" with no ABS involvement for them yuppie folks.

 

You need to lose the attitude, you don't control the responses you receive when asking a question here. With an attitude like yours, you only limit the number of people that will answer, because no one wants to help a guy with an attitude.

 

I would also be careful about "advertising" the fact that I disabled a built in safety feature in an open forum.
If you're ever involved in a collision (notice I didn't say accident), and the other guy's attorney discovers this, he's gonna have a slam-dunk case against you.

 

Also, unless you are at the VERY least an SCCA License holder, you are really fooling yourself with the fact that you THINK you can do better than the ABS can. It can do things a LOT faster and better than most of us can.

 

Whoops! Did I say that I did that on my '98 for off-road purposes only of course. That's OK. It's sold and I replaced the fuses before selling - and every time from coming from off-road travel of course!

 

I was coming in to Chicago on a wet day a few years back with a 32 foot trailer in tow. Coming down a hill I found traffic had stopped. If I hadn't had the ABS, I would not have been able to change lanes in order to avoid the semi I ended up next to. Maybe the best solution is to just slow down.

 

My H2 ABS was a joke, my new truck works great.......

 

Just a question here..... does the ABS work in 4x4? I remember my days as a GMC driver (till 98) and they only had rear wheel anti-lock. So when in 4x4 the front would lock and of corse transfer the "lock" to the rear via the transfer case and the whole truck was locked even though the rear ABS was trying to work. I just wondered if the Dodge system was different than that as I have not researched the system yet.

 

ABs in my truck works fine. I was going up through some hairpins in West Virginia last weekend and came upon a turn I couldn't see. I was going way too fast for it and had to SLAM on the brakes. The ABS allowed me to get the truck slowed down and turned. Without it I surely would have locked all four tires up and probably side-swiped the guard rail.

 

Four wheel ABS on the newer trucks.