Do Metros, Aspires, or Civic vx's have anti-lock brakes ABS?
 

Im envious of these cars, though I cannot justify puchasing them if they do not have abs, since I live in New York where winters are very uncomfortable without abs.

Are you serious?

i've lived in michigan since the age of 5, started driving at 14, been licensed since 16....

not once have i driven a car with functional ABS in slippery conditions.

and i haven't flown off of the road or otherwise been in a situation that ABS would have saved me from.

I've never had abs... just have to be careful, like you should be.

My 1992 Civic VX definitely does not have anti-lock brakes.

If you're giving yourself sufficient distance to try and minimize braking though, they shouldn't be a significant factor, assuming someone doesn't cut you off and slam on their brakes.

I grew up driving classic VW's in AK without problems, honestly you just apply many of the same principals as you would to hypermiling. Allow 3-4x 'regular' summertime stopping distance if there is any concern of ice and follow other cars a safe distance to prevent concerns of panicked stops.

No, no, and no.

Learn about "threshold braking", take a course, get some decent winter tires.

I live in AK, ABS is not some magic talisman that will keep you from crashing. Learn to drive. (edit: big +1 for getting proper winter tires anyone can out accelerate, out corner, and out stop any AWD car with run of the mill tires, in a front wheel drive econobox with kick but winter tires)

In fact as far as percentages go I see more cars/trucks in the ditch or causing accidents that have all those nifty save you when it's slippery features. They give a false sense of security so the operators don't really learn to drive.

abs on most car don't work unless you panic stop(ie hit the brakes hard), i've driven several cars with abs; most of the time your not using it.

ps. abs is dead weight brought to you by the nanny patrol(along with airbags)

Thanks for all the replies. Apparently all 95-01 metros did have optional abs.

"ps. abs is dead weight brought to you by the nanny patrol(along with airbags)"
So your saying airbags should be removed?

threshold braking and good winter tires are reasonable

Your questions got me thinking: I've owned roughly 20 cars or so. Only one (the latest one - 12 year old Honda Insight) has had ABS. Or air conditioning, for that matter! :)

front airbags only increase your chance of surviving a crash by 1%; don't know about side airbags though. but that one percent could be the difference between death and coma/brain damage.

surviving doesn't mean you walk away from the crash unharmed

the first gen airbags were dangerous to anyone sitting too close to them(under 5'5")

that and airbags were chosen because the general public thinks 4 and 5 point harness are complicated, expensive, retarded, don't want to feel like they are strapped into a jet fighter.

they'd prefer a loaded gun pointed at them instead.

Seriously? I live 10 min south of buffalo and have never had abs. I only have 7 years of driving experience, I'm young, stupid, and I speed a lot. I have NEVER gotten into an accident in the winter. Its pretty simple without abs. 1) Press brake pedal 2) if car starts to fish tail or slide let off the brakes until your tires catch and you regain control 3)repeat. My 2011 Tacoma is the first vehicle out of about 15 with functional abs and I pulled the fuses the 4th day I owned it. I tried to slow down to turn on a street in the snow and the abs kicked on it took me about 200 yards to stop from 30mph. Think about it this way... How can something that literally brakes only half the time stop you any faster. Abs is designed for idiots that have no control over their car and if you ask me, if you NEED abs to drive, then you shouldn't drive at all. (Rant over)

My reason for desiring abs is that my mother crashed a '89 Toyota Corolla due to locked brakes while me and my sister were inside (poeple in front of us braked, it was very snowy, hit guard rail, no one was hurt, and we drove home). My mother was no driving enthusiest, but my father I would like to say is, he isn't one to stomp on the brakes. He later drove the car and spun out mutiple times due to locked brakes in the snow(though he began doing it for fun after a certain point). The service shop is likely to blame, the brakes were just fine before they replaced the pads.

I have it on my car, both traction control and ABS. Never heard either one actuate, but I have not tried to climb the 14% grade up my driveway on ice or snow so far. When that happens I scrape the driveway and get a running start in the 35 foot deep garage and the additional 8 feet under the front porch.

The few times we have had some serious snow, I get out there immediately with a piece of plywood and become the human snowplow.

regards
Mech

I think maybe one time in the 19 years I've had my F150 I've had the ABS kick on, excluding the times I purposely stomped on the brakes on a slick ice sheet just to see if the ABS worked. I could certainly take it or leave it- mostly leave it, as it's just another thing to go wrong and require service/repair at some point.

Because braking half the time slows you down faster than skidding. You can also steer while braking heavily in a modern car with ABS. Do that in a car with regular brakes and you'll just slide.

Your experience was atypical; it is possible that the system in your truck was broken.


ABS was optional in the Aspire.

-soD

Air bags are designed to protect you when you are not wearing a seat belt, that is why some cars in the early '90's with automatic seat belts did not have air bags, they are their to save the people who can't figure out that it's a good idea to put a seat belt on!

Every automotive journal that I've read says that Anti-lock brakes increase your stopping distance and take away control from the driver, a lot of automotive magazines give stopping distances and slalom times with and without traction control being turned on and while traction control is more then just ABS breaks, you can see from those times that nearly every car that has an option where you can turn it off you can stop quicker and turn sharper, even more so in older cars.

But they all also seem to agree that ABS is a "good" idea for inexperienced drivers... but I've found that the best thing for inexperienced drivers is to learn to drive and learn how your car feels when it starts to go in to a skid! get experienced and learn to stop quicker then you would have with ABS breaks, learn to control the car instead of assuming that a little computer in their is going to control it better then you.

Some people scoff at the idea, but first slippery day of the season, take your car to an empty parking lot and relearn how to drive on a slippery surface! I've lived my whole life in northern Wisconsin and we get our share of snow, we also tend to get a nice mid winter freezing rain that leaves us with a layer of ice on all the roads for a few weeks.

you do know that proper braking technique can be learned for that; it's called threshold braking and steering; i've seen more cops use that then think abs will save your ass.

i bet you i can lock-up the wheels on an abs equip vehicle; in actual fact it's probably what caused me to turn 120 degrees and go into a building in the middle of summer.

It's a 2011 Tacoma, it was 4 days old. If the abs system isn't working properly I'm driving it THROUGH the dealership.

ABS does increase stopping distance. it's designed to prevent the tires from locking up on the pavement, which will cause all available traction to be used for slowing down the vehicle, rather than ~80% stopping capablility and ~20% turning.

think about it, what has the potential to slow down something faster, a big chunk of rubber scrubbing against asphalt with thousands of pounds of weight on it, or the same chunk of rubber rolling to a stop?

It is my understanding locking the brakes actual increase the stopping distance and that the only time locking the brakes is advantageous is on loose surface roads dirt or gravel where locking the brakes dig the vehicle in building up material in front of the tires.

http://www.drivingfast.net/images/ca...comparison.png

The fastest methods of slowing down in high grip conditions

1. Threshold braking

2. ABS braking

3. Locked wheels

4. Cadence braking

I know about those, I've practiced them quite a lot. But you cannot brake hard and turn at the same time and stay in control. That's in part because when you hit the brakes, you are using the brakes on all four wheels at the same time. When you turn, the inside wheels are more lightly-loaded and will tend to lock up. Look at most race cars, especially those driven by less-experienced drivers, going into a corner. The inside-front wheel locks up.

Tires that slide on the pavement grip less than tires that are still rolling. Look up "static friction versus sliding friction". (Note those are incomplete models because tires do not use just friction to provide grip, but the models do partly apply.)

A modern ABS will monitor individual wheels and will back off the pressure on a wheel that starts to lock. So the inside wheel still slows you down because it is not sliding.

Threshold braking is the quickest way to bleed off speed in a straight line. ABS is the best if you are trying to slow down and turn the car at the same time. If you're trying for lap times, you are faster using threshold braking and then turning (using trail braking if your car really needs the help to turn in) and turning while not using the brakes at all. But if you're trying to avoid an obstacle, especially if you don't have a lot of training, "Stomp, Stay, and Steer" is the best way to go. You may not stop the car as early as you could in a straight line, but you slow it down and get around the obstacle.

Nemo has the facts in his post as well, but that does ignore turning.

-soD

I have had an older car where 2 and 3 were swapped, maybe even worse than 4. My current cars with abs work pretty good, one of them might even compete with threshold braking, but I don't depend on them, and have practiced with the one I drive the most which has only rear wheel abs (to keep the back end from swinging arround).

My wifes car has all of the traction control/abs, in the snow and ice it was spinning and sliding everywhere, its traction control litteraly took its index finger put it between its lips wiggled it up and down while humming. My truck had some difficulty with the worst of the roads but the traction control consists of my left foot feathering the clutch and my butt giving me feedback as to what was happening. Its bad when the car with better tires, more traction and better stability sits on the sidelines to a lesser vehicle.

A co-worker was driving his mothers SUV (Blazer I think) and when he went to cross an intersection the tires spun a bit, then the engine shut down with the dash displaying a message "reduced traction-shutting down"

Only one of the vehicles I have has airbags, they are a mixed bag depending on what year you drive, also on the suburban the ABS system has caused us massive headaches since it basically disables the brakes, sliding would be better in all honesty. Result ABS delete.

My first car with ABS was a 93 grand am, no memory, 2nd 94 explorer for 95% of drivers could maybe do better than the ABS does. 02 Mit Montero Sport only 2-3% could beat it. 02 suburban about the same, current wifes 2010 implala ABS & TC are almost perfect. Maybe 1/2 percent of driver can beat it in predictable(dry pavement) but doubt they'd be ready 100% of the time like the computer is, stomp on the pedal it does the thinking. It really needs the noise & feed back of the old explorer, impala is too smooth.

Rented at 2011 focus automated manual with ABS & TC, so seemless I pushed harder on the go pedal because TC was working(driving around Duluth MN last Feb.) it needs more feed back as well. Impala has a flashing light but noise would be a plus. Maybe 1% could beat them with pratice in the same exact situation that it's working without warning, but how often does that happen.

It's not a factor in buying a car for myself, but is for my wife and no way do I think I'm in the 1%. Then start factoring in when a car has 100,000 miles and the brakes aren't as balanced as they wear when new.