ABS Opinions Anyone?

My 99 Silverado is the first vehical i have owned with ABS.(Well that actually worked anyway) I was told by people with ABS equipped vehicals to expect a slight pulsating of the brake pedal during ABS activation....... Well last night I had the Sh*&^T frightend out of me. I was driving along a local 4 lane road when the car in front of me decided he wanted to make a left turn half way through the intersection. He was about 50 feet in front of me when he stopped and I jumped on the brake to slow down. When the ABS kicked in, the pedal more than just pulsated, it moved quite a bit and would not stop the truck in time. Luck had it I had enough time to steer away from him before hitting him but I know that had this been one of my other vehicals I have owned I could have easily stopped with room to spare. Is this what ABS is all about? If so out comes the fuse. Anyone else with similar experiences?

If I have my info right, the ABS allowed you to steer around the other car, instead of locking up the fronts and sliding right into it.

But I wasn't there, so I can't really judge what exactly happened.

my 2 cents.

I think you were sliding and the ABS did what it was meant to. Silverado's have terrible problems with the ABS pump, the EBCM, rusty bolts on the EBCM, rusty hubs that mess up the sensor outputs and bad sensors themselves. You are one of the lucky ones that it all works.
Sonny

The ABS did exactally what is was designed to do , it allowed you to controll your vehicle under extreme braking conditions intsted of locking up the tires. I thought the same thing when i first had a vehicle with ABS .... this sucks, but it allows you to apply the MAX ammount of braking pressure to all tires and allows you to steer around the problem rather than plowing right into it with your wheels cranked one way or the other.

It takes a little getting used to, but when the ABS kicks in, you may need to put a lot more pressure on the brake pedal. After all, the ABS is modulating the brakes, not you. I found (past tense, my ABS hasn't worked for a year), that ABS is fantastic in the snow and rain, and not so good when you lose a little traction in the dry.

Mine used to lock up when I was just crawling along or coming to a gentle stop. :disappoin After a mechanic blaming the problem on the sensors in the hubs and two new ones later it did the same thing. Now I was told my ABS pump is bad.. well I've had enough(spent enough$) I just pulled the fuse. I don't speed and I give myself plenty of space between vehicles so It doesn't bother me not to have it.
-Jimmy

I had a great test of my ABS the other day as some jerk in a small Ford came the other way on a tight road and he was driving down the middle of the road. It was on a corner where I came up to him. He didn't even slow down and I had no where to go. I hit my brakes as hard as I could on the damp leaf ridden road and not a single tire skidded. I'm sure without the ABS I would have hit'em.

Just my :2cents: worth.

well this topic ummm i curse daily so i think this is called for, abs fucking sucks, blow's ,what ever. yes you gents are correct that abs is designed to let you control your vehicle while hard braking but alot of good that is on a straight stop?????????????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????????????????? ???????????????????????????????????????so for instance with this nice fall weather and leave's i ask you all to try this find some leave's on the right curb gutter(under your right tire) drive along any speed you wish let's say 50k iam in canada so we'll say km's anyway i dare you to try and stop while ONE FUCKING TIRE IS ON THE LEAVE'S when your front tire hit's the leave's hammer the brake's i promise you this you cant stop???????????????????? tell me why my fucking truck will blow a stop sign with leave's or snow or ice inder one tire with the other 3 tire's on DRY pavement it wont stop? that's fuckin stupid i can have 3 tire's with perfect traction and the car or truck will slide try it people then tell me your abs is the shit! p.s use caution people i have had an accident because of this and no i couldnt aviod it on coming traffic prevented me to avoid the car and i rammed right into the back 3 tirr'e dry pavement 1 tire on top of some leave's? and yes my abs was working fine............f- A B S

ABS doesn't bother me but I certainly would not buy up to get it. I think it was developed to promote driver inattention (for the most part). People can now not pay attention to the road so when they're tailgating and the person in front hits the brakes they can just jam on them and still stop. Most people who know how to drive and take a little care in how they drive will never have a problem bringing a non-abs vehicle to a stop. With all the advances in safety and technology people just become worse drivers and expect the vehicle to take care of the rest. Besides, when you live in an area where it snows so much I get my kicks out of controlled skidding in the snow.

Hi Mork
I know exactly what your problem is as it happened to me last winter - was just backing into my driveway, hit the brakes, and just kept on going backwards with the abs chattering away-finally stopped inches away from my garage door. Needless to say I pulled the fuse. The problem is with the abs sensors at the front wheels. You can look in the wheel well and see a black wire that runs to the sensor inserted in the hub. The sensors get corroded and don't read properly. Finally got tired of the abs light in my face all the time and had it fixed by a mechanic that works out of his garage after hours. 220 bucks and no problems since.....oh, mine is a 1999 also.