ABS Good or bad for stopping in snow?

Take your pick. Thermostat, leak on the high pressure hose for the hydraulic suspension, French electrics (which I am now convinced are worse than 1970's Italian electrics) and the heater never blowing hot because it works with some stupid temp sensor above the interior light that is noted for going wrong.

I knew someone who had one of those in the 70's. Fortunately the tin worm attacked it with a vengeance.

Conor ( snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

This the XM?

Not exactly a difficult job.

Not exactly a difficult job.

Underbonnet fuse/relay box? Godawful quality. They should be shot. Not difficult to rewire, and totally banish the probs.

Won't have been the sensor - that's usually reliable. It's probably the power transistor on the control board. Not a difficult fix for a man who regularly proclaims his skills with the soldering iron.

So nothing serious, then? Just a few minor problems you couldn't be bothered to fix?

It was done.

It was done and then it developed a leak on the unit at the front of the engine.

No, not that. Intermittent front windows, central locking on rear door, false bulb blown warning lights etc etc etc.

Lots of minor problems. It was one of those cars that looked like it was going to be a never ending job.

Had one of those! The problem was the narrow track on the front wheels - 7 inches or so less than the rear! It's the only rear wheel drive vehicle I owned that exhibited massive understeer. Tough and reliable, and better than the opposition (Bedford CA and Ford Thames) in that it had a 4 speed gearbox.

Another of its quirks was that the gear change gate was about 18 inches front to rear, but only an inch across the vehicle. This made changes from

Never saw one with a front handbrake?

Chris

Conor ( snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Just a seal.

Ten minutes with some contact cleaner.

I think it may have been a post office thing, they used them a lot. I had one which had a sticker near the handbrake which warned of it being front wheel handbrake but it was actually on the rear! Fortunately I'd had a good look underneath before buying it. The first thing that happened was the sheath on the handbrake lever coming up the lever unnoticed by me, and when the lights changed I couldn't get my thumb on the button to release it, I had to get out of the van and bash it back down, by that time the lights were red again and it was rush hour. I was popular that day :-))

Steve

Absolutely. When a little kid ran out in front of me chasing a c*ck* we trigger full on ABS.

It's shocking. In my day (!) cadence braking was taught, so it would seem. These days it's either assumed** or ignored.

Cadence braking still has a part to play with ABS-equipped cars. Triggering the ABS in Kermy lengthened the braking distance. Braking right until the point of triggering the ABS shortened the distance.

Yeah I've been in that situation too. :)

Hmm. Interesting. When I was descending the gradient I had pretty much no control over the Ka through braking. Sliding may have helped. ABS just kept me pointing straight ahead. :)

Agreed. I wanted ABS for Kermy but really only used it once to steer around somebody. Rest of the time it was there just in case.

Didn't do we much use today. ABS doesn't compensate for (1) idiots pulling out in front of me with seven feet to go and (2) doesn't work when the wheels are no longer in contact with the road. :-/

Tell you what, when you've put up with little things going wrong for a year then tell me how enthusiastic you'd be about keeping a 12 year old car.

I thought I had until it decided to start doing something odd in a corner, with a large tree approaching...

I decided at that point I'd rather be in charge, rather than have some little black box working off a set of rules I had no access to.

Or cadence braking.

Chris Street ( snipped-for-privacy@chris-street.demon.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Iffy wheel sensor?

Doesn't help much "in anger" when the OHFARK! reflex just kicks in.

OHFARK!

That would be the large tree approaching, would it?

The message from "shazzbat" contains these words:

That's a Safety at Work thing, is it?

I had that feeling when I had ABS - no control at all when trying to feather the brakes, have to keep pulling-off the pedal completely instead of keeping very light pressure. Didn't like it at all.

LOL, probably. What *do* you call the crappy plastic handgrippy thing?

Steve

The message from "shazzbat" contains these words:

Er - "the crappy plastic handgrippy thing" usually.

I didn't get much further. On thing I've found with Wikipedia is that a lot of it is wrong.

In my case I didn't want to go straight on, a sideways slide would have been good at that time, I might even have managed to angle into the kerb and stopped altogether.

I've only ever had that situation once, and a collision from behind negated any benefit ABS could have offered.

Indeed.