ABS friend or foe?

Wondering how you guys feel about ABS braking. Is it a nuisance to you or is it a handy driving tool? Now I don’t drive yet but I would think its kind of a bother especially when you are trying do manipulate your car when racing. I see it as another program made for people who cannot drive. As long as you can keep a cool head in dangerous situations I think you could do better with out it in both regular driving and racing.

For those who cant drive, i feel it helps, and even for those who can drive well, it can help at times, where you know when if u didnt have abs you should pump but u just slam on teh breaks adn skid for a little bit. I feel, that it can also make things easier in regualr driving in very slick conditions (snow), but in racing, im not sure if it would have a place or not.

I cant say if ABS helps or not because i"ve yet to drive a car with one (my car doesnet have ABS). But I think it can help...It wont be put in cars if it couldnt help.

ABS is bad.....until u go for a quick stop and ur brakes lock up :lol: that really sux :thumbsup:

Well for racing i hate ABS for daily driving i hate ABS and only time its nice is when i take out the subie and get a lil too ballzy in the snow. Most cars that have ABS arn't tuned mean enough dialbos have ABS but its so much more mean then whats on a town and country so if its a good tune then ABS is ok. But since i can't afford a car thats anygood with ABS i'll stick to pumping OG stlye

Let's just say that without ABS, my Impreza would be part of a guard rail last friday.
Some dumbass cut out in front of me in a snow storm and forced me into some heavy braking on at least an inch of snow. Without the ABS I wouldn't have been able to steer around her and clear of the railing.

For that reason, I like ABS, any other time, it don't mean much to me.

ABS has it's place and time. I don't really think it has a good purpose in road or autocross racing. Personally, I can drive better then the average person, but there's times I'm glad my 1 ton van has ABS. You try stopping a big, fully loaded van when some idiot cuts you off. Or even on ice, it gets great traction cause of the weight, but it's a sled when on ice.

If you think ABS is a bad thing, you either can't drive yet, or haven't been in a dangerous enough situation(luckily). Because when you do get in one, you will thank your lucky stars you have ABS. It's a godsend, and one of the most valuable system on any car anywhere.

the sunbird, would be probabley be having some work done to it if it wasnt for ABS. for racing and whatnot, i hear it isnt to good, but i have no idea personally. but for just normal daily driving, it is the most usefull thing, in the winter. in the summer, you shouldnt have to brake like that anyways. but i will never buy annother winter car without ABS

My only prob with ABS is sometimes I find it will kick in when I don't need or want it. When this happens it kind of surprises you and I don't like surprises when I'm driving.

Its extra weight, so if you were going all out, you could do without.. lol.. but of course, it does help in hard braking situations in keeping the car in a straight line..

Well as I see it, where I'm at there is snow on the ground 1-2-3-4-5 months a year no joke. I've yet to have a need for ABS never been in an accident either and usually the cars you see wrecked usually do have ABS since with most people it adds a false sense of security and they go about driving as they would on dry pavement.

well to any non dumbass, it is a good feature. if your racing, maybe it isnt. but for winter driving, it helps. im not saying mash teh brakes all the time and just let the abs do it all. what im saying is, if its icey all of a sudden, and you didnt know it, or someone slammed on the brakes in front of you, abs is going to help. because at least 1/2 of people would freak and slam the brakes. for a daily driver, it is usefull. and it only prevents accidents, juse because you see accidents with people that have abs, doesnt mean it is doing it to them. its all in the driver.

For the winter, it comes in handy. My car has major issues with wheelhop, and various other traction problems. ABS has saved the car a few times when coming to a stop over bumps, or driving in the snow.

Amish is right. Actually, non-ABS cars do a little better in snow on top of ice, since the locked wheels in front give the snow a chance to pile up and stop the car a few feet shorter. That is a few feet, but might save you. There is a reason Audi quattro's of the past had an ABS kill switch. I don't know, they might still have it. I have experienced braking in the snow (no ice) with ABS (my mom's '91 BMW 318i 5-spd, sweeet car), it came to a reasonably brisk halt. I've learned to work the shifter and baby the brakes on the icy stuff in my 2002, which is fun. I say, for road cars ABS is the single greatest advancement of our time. It's not too complicated of a system, and it works wonders for vehicles like RWD pickups and such. Safety is good.

You're going to go old school if you want more of a driving experience anyway (bias).

Race cars have the greatest traction control device in the world: RACE DRIVERS.

I know that some of you aren't going to respect my postion on ABS braking, but like others have said before, I believe that ABS brakes are a godsend for normal driving, for racing it's a bit of a hassle sometimes, but when there is an emergency, like when I hit a patch of ice at one AM then I was glad to have it.

Non-abs is only good for road racing purposes.. And thats with kids who can really really controll their cars. ABS is very useful for everday driving..

...Also something I was thinking about just now...if you were so used to driving with ABS, if you raced, wouldn't you just accomodate or adapt even with the "ABS Handicap"?

Yeah. Supposedly the new viper has ABS and it's stock lap times are a few seconds quicker on most courses than the previous non ABS equipped GTS (I don't know about the ACR). But I still want ABS to be absent on my driving cars. It's just the way it should be.

I'm the type that will sacrifice a few mph/HP/.10 lateral G's to make my car a better learning machine. I want to progress past my car, not have my car be always ahead of my abilities. I added bilstien shocks and H&R springs to my 2002, simply because it needed both items replaced. I don't want to buy Boge shocks and stock springs when I'll be buying upgrades in the future anyway. It DOES handle ten times better now too. Anybody here ever drive a 2002?

Abs saved my butt in upstate newyork driving my tahoe it works really well bc u can keep control of the car. Also when i was at my girls house she has this long ass driving down a hill that twists back and fourth and it was ice so it would be alot harder to go down with out it.

Something that hasn't yet been mentioned: There are different types of ABS. Primarily doe to the increase in processing rate of computers, ABS has gotten a lot better over the last few years and for John. Q. Public's daily driver, is of a lot of benefit. On a track car, a properly designed ABS sytem is an improvement, but a street ABS system has a couple of major downsides on track. The reason that street ABS is bad is that street systems are designed for low speed, low grip conditions, and on a track, the added available grip can create situations where the ABS system gets confused and overloaded, and the brakes can stop working entirely (Very bad). With most street ABS systems, the braking distances are the shortest just before the ABS kicks in. The other downside to ABS, and this is true even with racing ABS systems, is that if something goes wrong and you spin, you want to lock the brakes up. ABS doesn't allow this, and it makes the path of the car a lot more difficult to predict for other drivers approaching the spin. This can have very bad results.

I personally dislike ABS. Its been my experience that more often than not the ABS will not stop the car as fast as I could do it myself. I used to drive a 95 GT Grand Am that had ABS and it was terrible for racing for that reason, and in daily driving I spent more time making sure the ABS did not activate (it made me really good at braking), and once I finally decided to turn it off things got a lot better.

Its bad for racing, but it can be a good learning tool!

Ya the ABS in my dads Landrover comes on all the time also, but I think its just because its screwed up.