ABS on this truck is dangerous...

We're in the midst of an awful drought here, yet because I scheduled a Thursday off to go fishing, mother Nature decided to have a sudden random thunderstorm in the high Sierra, with hail and snow, while I was driving a steep 2-lane road with switchbacks.

My Taco is 7 years old & had never been driven in the snow before. In fact I haven't driven in the snow at all in 20 years.

Anyhow, no issues with the ABS in the snow this time, but the traction control worked great.

And BTW if it's another 7 years before I go drive in the snow again that won't bother me either.

 

I cant believe the amount of people who must have failed physics class that believe that dynamic friction (locked up wheel) provides more traction than a static friction (wheel rolling). Embarrassing. No wonder we have so many ppl that drink koolaid in this country.

 

I can't believe you don't know that your argument only applies to a rigid surface that doesn't deform. So for sand or snow in fact locking the wheel does result in much faster stopping.

And of course the wheel itself deforms too and when the tire is siped, as all modern winter tires are, then once again a locked wheel can provide faster stopping on ice than one forced to keep rolling.

And I suppose the manufacturer is drinking koolaid as well, when they specifically warn right in the owners manual (pg 195 of the 2015 manual):

They state this because anyone who knows anything about how ABS works knows that in fact it increases stopping distance in many situations. The primary goal of ABS is not reducing stopping distance, it is maintaining steering control while stopping. In some cases it also can reduce stopping distance, but in many conditions it actually increases stopping distance. Again, this is really basic stuff that if you spend a minute understanding how ABS systems are designed and intended to operate you would not make such a misinformed post.

So general advice, before making a smart ass post like yours try to actually be a little bit smart about what is you are posting about.

 

I'm curious to know how many of you are running winter tires that are complaining about the ABS

 

I still love how butthurt people are getting about ABS . At first this was a real discussion about the Tacoma's ABS and ABS but now it's just stupid on both sides.

 

The ABS fight is over till next October

 

Start saving for your winter tires now

 

BOOM.

 

Um that was the point I was making in general and apparently you chose to apply it to yourself as well.

Agreed on the snow and sand.

you are still wrong on a pavement or rigid surface, SUCH AS ICE, a locked wheel does NOT provide faster stopping than a wheel that continues to roll at the limit of static traction. I suppose you think that a drag racing car gets more traction and is faster by spinning it's wheels than if the tire hooks up to pavement...or ice...lets see your proof on that supposition. As far as the tire is concerned its the exact same dynamics to the contact patch.

ABS is designed so that you may keep steering control of your vehicle. But thank you captain obvious. If a person was a perfect driver at keeping the wheels bound down to the point of exactly the static friction limit without going over then yes you could beat the ABS in stopping distance. When you meet that perfect person let us all know. Of course I'll bet you find him in the mirror.

Nothing of what you said proves that I don't know what Im talking about, just that in 100 pages of crying and whining there is still a lot of people that dont understand simple physics.

Boom? what boom. There was no boom.

 

Don't use logic and science in this thread. That's how butt hurt happens.

Speaking of which, is it winter again already? Why won't this thread go to sleep!

 

Drag racing tires are not siped. Winter tires are. Siped tires can in fact stop faster locked than siped tires allowed to roll at the limit of their undeformed static traction on ice. The point you are still missing is that the deformed dynamic traction of a tire can be higher than the undeformed static traction. This is the exact same argument as the deformed surface of snow or sand which you've already agreed to. The same principle applies to the deformation of the tire in a limited set of circumstances. One of those circumstances is the case of a siped tire on ice which is largely the topic of this thread that you dropped your rant into.

So back to my original statement, your argument applies primarily to surfaces that are rigid or do not have their coefficients of static and dynamic friction change under deformation or load. Turns out both the road surface (e.g. sand/snow) and the tire surface (siped tires) do in fact change their coefficients of friction under deformation and load. Thus there are a variety of conditions in which locking the wheels reduces stopping distance compared to ABS - sometimes significantly. And those conditions are the ones being addressed in this thread - which you apparently either did not know or chose to ignore when you posted.

Nice straw man. The point being addressed was that regardless of driver skill or ABS function in certain road conditions locked wheels decrease stopping distance. I'm fairly certain that my ABS system will stop my vehicle much faster and more competently than me when on surfaces it was designed for (e.g. pavement, wet or dry). And that is probably 99% of my driving so I'm quite happy to have the ABS system on almost all the time. I'm also fairly confident that I know when I'm driving on sand or snow and that my ABS system does not. I'm also fairly confident that I know what kind of tires I have on my vehicle and how they behave in certain special conditions (like snow and ice) and whether or not the one size fits all algorithm for the ABS system is going to be helpful or not. And so I'll use that knowledge to disable the ABS system when I know the operating conditions of the vehicle are different from those for which the ABS system was designed to be effective in.

The question in this thread is whether the Tacoma ABS system is acting appropriately in snow/ice conditions compared to the ABS systems on many other vehicles. I have no opinion at this point and I'm not sure this thread will ever resolve that. I'm pretty darn sure your post contributed nothing to that discussion and was in itself inaccurate because it ignored the very conditions being discussed in this thread.

 

ABS INCREASES STOPPING DISTANCES ON LOOSE TRACTION SURFACES LIKE SNOW

FACT

 

yeah. and?

 

Street tires have sipes. Performance tires have sipes. Snow tires have sipes. Mud tires often don't. Doesn't matter if you are positing that a vehicle spinning its wheels with whatever tires you wanna call it, will accelerate on a paved or icy surface faster than if you keep the tires hooked up. Simply untrue. Loose surface I'll buy it. Not on paved. Deformation smeforation. All tires deform at the contact patch. Same is true for braking.

I don't know which threads you think I was specifically responding to in 100 pages about specific conditions in which ABS is not the clear choice, seems to me the first few pages concern ppl going too fast for conditions and expecting miracles.

You chose to single out me first.

Which is more the flavor of my original post.

 

This.....yup

 

Glad we agree

 

Seemingly off topic now, but something else to contemplate and a necessary thing to consider... What is the probability that you will encounter particular conditions in which the ABS might be useful to YOU? Pretty sure the engineers account for probability when implementing ABS. Thats why they install it. It will save more folks/vehicles than it will hurt. With that said- City driving on slippery conditions- where the distance between me and the car I might rear-end is closer (not enough time/distance to "steer" away with ABS "on" to avoid a collision), I'd rather not have the ABS kick in because I'm more confident in my own ability to stop my truck in a shorter distance (but my grandma, let's keep it simple and default to ABS- see probability above). On the interstate at 70mph with some distance between me and another vehicle, the ABS would allow me to maintain steering control and avoid collision and/or drifting into oncoming traffic. In that case, I think ABS would do better than I could do (or maybe not, but again, probability- things can go south really quickly at that speed, even if i do consider myself a pretty good driver). For me, whether I want it on or off is dependent on multiple variables- primarily speed, bourbon, and the distance between me and an "obstacle".

 

I'm not talking about the contact patch deformation - let's call that macro deformation. I'm talking about the deformation of the surface of the tire on the small scale which allows the sipe edges to catch rough spots on ice or otherwise very smooth surfaces when the wheel is locked. This is different from the behavior of sipes when the tire is rolling in which they perform two functions, one is drawing water into the sipe much like the larger scale tread does and the other is allowing the tread block to conform to the surface on finer spatial scales than an unsiped tread block could. But when locked the edges of sipes themselves come into play to increase the effective coefficient of friction in way that they do not when the wheel is rolling. This effect is only relevant when the coefficient of friction from the tread block surfaces is very low (as on ice).

Regardless, having read that some years ago I can not find the source now. Given the amount of marketing BS around about tires if I can't give you the source and evaluate the validity of the source I see no reason why you should change your opinion about it. So I won't press the point further.

Fair point. There is a lot of stupidity in the thread, sorry to pick on you. Your comments are probably valid considered against some of the posts in the thread.

 

Drivers tend to do better when they can steer to avoid accidents, particularly at high speeds. Hence ABS tends to lower fatalities.

I posted an article way back about this but it's lost in the clusterhump called this thread.

 

I love it how ABS on snow at lower speed performance gets compared apples to apples against dry pavement at 70 mph