RE: ABS ACTIVATING @ 3MPH

[Phil and Judy Rose <pjrose@servtech.com>]

In gravel, yes. It's not hard to imagine a lot of extra friction
established by pieces of gravel held by a locked wheel at the leading edge
of (or under) the tire's contact patch. Same might be true for deep sand.
And I know that gravel is specifically mentioned in the owners manual (for
deactivation of ABS). In very deep snow, sure the _front end_ of the car
could produce a snowplow effect that may be significant (with or without
ABS); that's why in winter rallying I always considered deep
snow--especially snowbanks as a comforting security blanket. But improved
stopping by snowplowing from the locked tires??? I doubt it.

BTW, the earlier poster advised to disable ABS in snow or on _slippery_
surfaces. That would include ice, rain, oil...... I'll take my chances with
ABS, thank you. We also know that control is often more important than
stopping distance. And control in snow (except very deep snow, perhaps) is
often poor without ABS.

Let's also keep in mind that although there could--in principal-- be
certain snow surface conditions that make ABS less than ideal, winter
conditions are very quite variable. One thing I'm certain that no one wants
to have to think about is turning ABS on/off as each ocassion for a panic
stop arises. So, although I'm definitely not a one-size-fits-all kind of
person, I think that leaving ABS activated is, all-in-all, the optimum (not
necessarily ideal) choice. YMMV

Phil


>In deep snow or gravel you can usually have shorter braking distance
>with the ABS off, because the snow accumulates in front of the locked
>wheel and pushing it increases braking force. I'm not sure, but it's
>probably mentioned in my 5K's owner's manual.
>
>Aleksander Mierzwa
>Warsaw, Poland
>mailto:alex@matrix.com.pl
>87 Audi 5000CS turbo (mine)
>88 Renault Medallion wagon (mom's)
>91 mountain bike (just in case both cars broke at the same time :-)
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From:	Phil and Judy Rose [SMTP:pjrose@servtech.com]
>> Sent:	Wednesday, December 03, 1997 4:50 AM
>> To:	quattro@coimbra.ans.net
>> Cc:	cobram@Channel1.Com
>> Subject:	Re:  ABS ACTIVATING @ 3MPH
>>
>> [...]
>>  I disagree with your advice about deactivating ABS in the snow.
>>
>> Phil
>

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