Can you turn off ABS by pulling the fuse?

Older cars have the same problems older people have. Not all the features work as well as they did when they were new.

Besides, ABS is not a safety device. ABS is a crutch to the people learning to drive to allow braking and steering at the same time. For people who separate braking and steering it's not as useful. I would even venture a guess that the ABS is a useful distraction by auto manufacturers to distract people from the fact that they have mediocre tires and puny rotors/pads.

Take a look at the STi and take another look at the regular WRX. Do you notice any difference in the front rotor diameters???

It's cheaper to add some piece of electronics and start people who they care about safety then invest extra dough into selling the car with decent tires and better performing brakes.

Why? I would imagine this is to give the parts makers quite a bit of business. You'd go to tirerack.com and buy a brembo system (currently around $2300). A decent set of tires (over $500 for 205 55 16 and some exorbitant amounts for 17" and 18"s)

Now all of a sudden you wonder was not that a good idea to buy an STi or EVO instead of "saving" a few bucks.

So I think you "buy an older car" logic is kinda flawed. Too bad that the "modern safety devices" are forced down everybody's throat whether they want it or not. Ever wondered why the EVO IX is such a portly beast? Where did extra 500 pounds of girth came from over 4-5 generations? I would suspect US side impact standards have something to do with this bastardization of a perfectly light car.

And Imprezas are not light by any measure. I hope Prodrive will find some Korean or Chinese factory to make P2 for the masses. They could share the same assembly line with the Lotus (for the masses) :-]

Sorry, just venting.

I think that's a personal point of view; not fact -- airplanes have had ABS since at least the 60's -- I bet you wouldn't find a 747 piolot that wouldn't want abs on there no matter how seasoned they are.

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Yeah.......that may be so but the claimed advantage of ABS is that it gives you control over steering under heavy braking.

Now I would hope that when that 747 is thundering down the runway, and the pilot is yelling out C'MON; STOP YOU BASTARD that he in not trying to steer too.

You're an idiot!

HTH

Body Roll wrote:

You forget that the 747 pilots do not regularly land on

And unlike the Sub I bet they can switch it off. Why would they want to? As people have pointed out there ARE conditions when it's advantageous to switch off ABS on a car. On 747 it's just never the case. Do you have a dedicated $500000 Oshkosh snow removal truck parked in your driveway to make sure you won't have to drive on snow???

Out cars could benefit from ABS deactivation button. I won't mind if it's on by default when the engine is started and if the light comes on when you switch it off.

Well, a trip to the parts dept and a $20 wiring manual later you can add it yourself because I bet Subaru won't. Sigh.

That is considered "nonresponsive." The question will be repeated and you will be ordered to answer: "yes" or "no." Durned lawyers.

But to answer your question, those brakes could be defective. If the linings are soaked with brake fluid they will certainly lock up (had the experience on one wheel) but the braking control is the pits.

Mike

I think not - if you can't tell the ABS controller the date and time, it doesn't know them.

Mike (who survived a Y2K audit at work)

That is quite possible. However, would you be so kind to take time to explain which parts of my post made you think so and why?

That's fine, maybe you're just over analyzing it. Or maybe you just have more time to type long winded responses. The "modern safety devices", and "buy an older car" arguments that seem to have upset you are purely subjective terms. Sorry for being so vague.

Concise, accurate, to the point. I like it.

I think you're right. It was foolish to think that Prodrive would assemble a car abroad and Subaru would build a 2000 lbs car. I'll just buy a 4000 pound truck to haul manure to the ranch I don't have.

Thank both of you for a useful insight into the intricacies of the wiring of my brain. Not that I plan to stop to use it anytime soon.

How does being smart work out for you? Must be a heavy burden to bear. Not that you mind I understand.

Ok, in other words, again:

#1. ABS is pretty much just a tool to help new drivers not kill themselves while they learn how to drive. Judging by the number of people worshiping Consumer Report and other incompetent publications there seem to be a large segment of the population that think they still do.

#2. On the subcompact side Honda has Fit, Nissa has Versa, Suzuki has SX4 and Toyota has it's own crap coming. Subaru has just been sitting on it's posterior for a long time and has nothing lighter than Impreza.

Further 1.1 Either impreza could go on the diet or 1.2 They could build a lighter car which would help greatly bring the stopping distances down even with base impreza brakes alleviating the need for ABS further.

#3. On the fun to drive side: Prodrive and Lotus can build P2 and Elise in Korea or China for the US market to sell cars in higher volume at a lower price should they want to. If they won't do it some other small specialty automaker hopefully will (and I sure hope that car won't have ABS).

I think once Chinese make it to the US market Koreans would no longer be able to compete on price alone and would have to innovate quicker. Maybe it's time for someone to provide some healthy competition for Japanese.

No but typically all OEMs store the number of ignition cycles since the code was set up to 255. Even if the light goes off the code is stored for generally 255 more cycles then it gets erased. or you can erase it manually and reset the counter.