Tacoma on ice... I'll take the car instead.

x2 I have never seen a road like that!! JUST SNOW here occasionally.

 

That is one iced up road Demon, damn we got slickered today too. So glad I studded my sled this season too, finally, too much ice everywhere!!!

 

It seems to kick on too quickly. Thus it's harder to enable thresh hold braking techniques. And much more likely to put you into the ditch.

 

I don't think you get it. I'd say at least half the people online that have hit their brakes on any loose terrain have complained about the ABS kicking in too soon. So by your logic half the trucks out there are bad? I'd me more inclined the think there's a design or implementation flaw rather than 25-50% of the trucks are flawed.

As for not pumping the ABS.... Please... That's how I keep the ABS from being a pain in the ass and not stopping my truck. I push until I feel the brakes really grab, ease off a bit, apply more pressure, etc. Works well for me and I haven't felt my ABS kick in all winter except in my driveway. And don't tell me backing out of a barn at 5-10mph MAX and pushing hard on the brakes in 4-6" of snow should activate the ABS.

At 5-10mph I may not be able to steer fast enough to avoid a tree, but I can damn sure stop soon enough to not hit it if my ABS didn't kick in.

 

Demon, just come over to the house and we can try the ABS kill switch to see if it works. I'm assuming that having the locker on grounds that wire, thus shutting off the ABS. So it should work on yours. You just don't have a "factory kill switch" via the locker.

 

The problem is this: you try to stop on snow/gravel/ice/etc and the ABS kicks in. Great, it keeps your wheels from locking up and sliding off the road or through the intersection right? WRONG! This system releases the brakes, lets the wheels roll a bit, applies the brakes again, sees the wheels are locked, releases the brakes again... (I know, this is how it's *supposed* to work... blah blah blah ) The problem is, the speed at which this happens creates the effect of a flat stone skipping across the lake. It doesn't sink, it doesn't stop, and it often does more harm than good. A stone will eventually stop skipping. Your tires do the same thing going down a hill and....well.... whatever's at the bottom is what stops you, not the brakes.

Edit:
At least if you lock your brakes friction will eventually slow and stop you. With the ABS constantly releasing then braking the wheels how will you ever get enough friction to stop on ice or snow? You don't until something builds up in front of the wheels blocking them, or the terrain changes.

 

Remember, ABS is only there to enable to you keep steering while attempting to slow you down. It isn't there to just slow you down.

 

My driveway looked the same way yesterday morning. I was just preying that Mrs. Ticketdoctor did not slide into the garage with her Civic.

Another thing to consider is a Mazda 3 is probably 500 to 1000 lbs lighter than your Taco. That might be the reason that it took 20 percent more distance to stop.

 

True. It's there to maintain control. In theory anyway. Unfortunately, how much control do you really have when your tires are skipping across the surface?

If I had a choice of stopping before I run off a cliff or into a busy intersection, or being able to move I'd rather stop. Too many roads around here have little room to maneuver or swerve to avoid something. Like narrow downhill roads with a tree lined cliff on one side, and a house on the other.

I almost slid into the car in front of me once slowing for an accident on a steep hill. ABS kicked it at idle speed, 1st gear (HAD to be less than 5mph) and caused the tires to skip over the snow. I managed to stop less than a foot from their back bumper. I turned my locker on after that and magically my brakes had no trouble stopping me. At a speed that slow ABS should not be utilized.

 

Seriously? When I ran studs in the past on my car, most of the studs had fallen out after 3 seasons.

 

yep, seriously. The studded tires that my wife used for 5 seasons are still in the barn. My brother-in-law is going to put them on his truck when they get moved to Indiana. Two leak air, one kinda bad, but besides that they are still good. My wifes vehicle always sat in the garage as well.

The last year I took them off, I rolled them all around and I think my wife lost about 4 or 5 studs altogether on all 4. I was very proud of her. But I did give her strong warnings not to ever spin a tire! She also is terrified of spinning out so she always drove like a grandma. I also told her not to turn the wheels while sitting still, try not to make sharp turns in parking lots etc. and to take off slowly from a stop as to not pull out the studs.

You loosing studs may have to do with the guy that installed the studs too. They use a tool to install them and maybe they weren't expanded properly or something?? Who knows??

Edit :When you say car, was it front wheel drive? With the studs on the front?

 

I agree.

I once was approaching a stop sign at a 4-way intersection (fortunately no other traffic coming from any direction). I wasn't going fast, and the road for the most part was clear and dry. About 10-15 feet before the stop sign while lightly applying the brakes, one of my wheels hit just a momentary patch of ice. The wheel must have wanted to momentarily lock up on the ice, ABS kicked in, taking away all my braking power, and I cruised right through the stop sign and came to a stop in the middle of the intersection.

I considered disabling my ABS system after that incident, but haven't as of yet. If I didn't have ABS, maybe I'd have had a wheel lock up for a second or two, but I'd have easily and safely stopped at the stop sign.

 

And that's why I have the kill switch. 99% of the time the ABS is enabled, but for those 1% situations where I don't want to wonder if the ABS is gonna make things worse I can flip that switch. I have an idea when the ABS is gonna go ape shit so I flip the switch before hand (like approaching an intersection like you mentioned), and then flip it off later. If the whole length of road is bad, I might keep it off. Especially if it's one of the cliff lined back country roads around here.

Most of the time if the roads are bad I'm in 4wd and that seems to help. Like maybe the drive train being locked makes the front brakes slow the rear wheels too (since rear brakes typically don't do a whole lot. I know my car will lock the front brakes and the rear don't do shit).

Although 4wd doesn't help all the time. I went to a job interview last winter and almost slid through EVERY intersection I came too despite slowing down to idle speed at least 100ft back. Thank god there was never a plow coming across in front of me. I ended up turning the locker on to shut off ABS and found myself stopping a good 10 ft sooner and NOT going into the intersection. I was practically shitting bricks the whole 80 mile round trip and that's what motivated me to finally do the ABS kill switch.

 

Can you really compare a front wheel drive vehicle with a rear wheel drive pickup truck that's lite in the rear end? Front wheel drive will always win IMO because it handles much better. You drive them entirely different as well in slippery conditions. In FWD you can actually accelerate (to some extent) to correct handling in a slippery condition whereas a RWD vehicle you'll find the rear end facing the wrong way if you accelerate too hard. Not to mention traction on a FWD vehicle is much greater with the weight of the engine on it vs an empty truck bed for traction. ABS will kick on a lot more frequently in a pickup truck due to the lack of traction on the rear end. Add some weight and you'll find a much different response.

Give me a truck with 4WD (and proper tires) anyday in the ice and snow. Driven properly you're more likely to get out of a situation vs a FWD car.

JMHO

 

You forget sir that once you lose traction by skidding you also lose handling as well. ABS isn't meant to stop you faster.. it's meant to help you stear around a bad situation in hard braking situations. Lock em up and grab your arse and hope for the best. Give me ABS anyday. You just have to learn how to drive with it properly.

 

ABS is a safety feature that helps keep you breaking in a straight line and maintain control. I'll take ABS any day of the week over not having it. If your vehicle gets sideways at high speed due to breaking and then the wheels grab you'll know what I'm talking bout. In a car vs truck breaking distance the car is going to win. Weight vs available friction. I'm not a mathmatician but a truck weighs a lot more than a car and isn't going to be able to stop as fast.

 

Tell me, what happens when you skip a stone across water? Does it turn, swerve, or general go in a straight direction?

Maybe you missed the part where I said the tires skip like a stone over water when the ABS kicks in. Exactly how much control is a tire skipping ofver the surface going to have?

I know, ABS is supposed to allow the wheel to start rolling again for a bit and let you control the vehicle. Fact is, it DOSEN'T happen that way.

Maybe you're not understanding me... I've TRIED steering when the ABS kicked in because I was headed straight for a parked car (apartment parking lot), tree (new driveway), and the car in front of me (road, downhill). Each and EVERY f'n time I had no more control than if the brakes had locked up! Maybe even less because at least I would've stopped had the brakes locked up. All of these situations were in the 10mph and UNDER category. So don't give me any shit about maneuverability. How much "maneuvering" are you going to do making a left turn into your apartment parking lot lined with parked cars? Seriously? I had a few feet of clearance on both sides and a path to my parking spot. I don't want to swerve, dodge, miss, or maneuver. I want to FUCKING STOP. In such low speed conditions ABS should be off by default. I mean, stopping a few inches sooner is the difference between hitting a tree and not. Being able to steer away from the tree may or may not make a difference. Completely crank the wheel and you just slide sideways into the trip or, worse, roll over. Try to steer just a little bit and it might be the difference between tree in a headlight instead of the grill. Either way, chances are you still hit the tree because if it was safe to just swerve around it completely why would you be slamming the brakes?

Let me explain it this way, you know how the steering wheel "floats" around when you hydroplane? You can move it back n forth with 1 finger and the truck doesn't change directions.... That feeling? Yeah, that's what happened to me each time the ABS kicked in. It was in varying degrees of course, but steering was still useless until I let off the brakes or came to a stop and started again.



Do me a favor, everyone here that likes the ABS in this truck or thinks we shouldn't be complaining about it try something for me. Take your truck somewhere that you won't hit anything with loose terrain to drive on (snow, ice, sand gravel, loose dirt, whatever). Try driving 10-15 mph and simulate a panic stop. I don't really care. Toss a beer can out and pretend it's a car you're trying to avoid. Let me know what happens, how the ABS reacts, driving habits you have to change, whatever. Then come back and talk about it.

Seriously. I want other people to see WTF I'm talking about or find out if a large number of our trucks is defective (since so many complain).

 

4LO on a city street? Easier to just engage the locker (with the mod) or flip a switch. Less wear and tear on drive train too.

 

Holy crap - that stuff terrifies me...

 

Have to say I have had a few oh shit moments with the ABS. It happens quite frequently at those hardpack icy stop signs where a few hundred folks have stopped. The ABS kicks in, truck keeps going, no control.

Do not understand the 4lo thing either

BUT ... I have to admit though the new studdies are working wonderfully stopping and keeping the truck planted on some pretty icy conditions the last few days and NO ABS has kicked whatsoever.