99' Camry tires skid

If all your brakes work then wake up and drive more carefully

vamsy wrote: || Last night i was saved luckily, My car has ABS and i was driving || about 65Mph suddenly the car infront of me stopped, I applied the || Brakes the tires skid and i was unable to stop finally i pulled the || car curbside. The tires are brand New. It was not raining, so what || need to be done to avoid skidding of tires. I appreciate your help || Thx

Something appears to terribly wrong with your vehicle. I have a 99 Camry with ABS. I would NEVER give up ABS. Hmm. what kind of road surface? Loose gravel? Did you KEEP the brake pedal fully depressed? If not, ABS won't work.

m Ransley wrote: || If all your brakes work then wake up and drive more carefully

I have never heard of a properly functioning 99 Camry ABS putting a car into a skid unless the user is improperly braking.

Try pulling the handbrake in addition to the regular floor brake. This makes my car stop on a dime when I need to. Assuming your rear brake pads are good. How do you know the tires skid? Did you leave a track? Or do you just assume it due to not being able to stop in time.

Roger wrote: || Try pulling the handbrake in addition to the regular floor brake. || This makes my car stop on a dime when I need to. Assuming your rear || brake pads are good. How do you know the tires skid? Did you leave || a track? Or do you just assume it due to not being able to stop in || time.

If you have ABS, you should NOT bugger around by activating the hand brake at the same time.

You're right, people who think ABS is going to magically save them are not in control of their car anyway. The idea of using the hand brake for other than parking purposes scares them.

Roger wrote: || You're right, people who think ABS is going to magically save them || are not in control of their car anyway. || The idea of using the hand brake for other than parking purposes || scares them.

Hmm, not scared of hand brake. However, special training is required for one to properly use the hand brake for mobile conditions.

The

Is your ABS functioning? Are you sure it is active (actually installed)? There should be an "ABS" light on the dash that comes on with the ignition key, then goes out when the engine is running. Next check your tire pressure. If tires are over inflated or under inflated, or inflated unevenly between left and right sides, they will not grip as well as they should. Third, reconsider your braking methods. If your ABS were working, you just mash down on the pedal and let the ABS take over to avoid skidding. Sounds like your ABS is not working. For standard brakes, you need to learn to "modulate" the braking pressure. First - a surprisingly large portion of braking distance is taken up in moving the foot over to the brake pedal, so if you can position your foot over the brake pedal more quickly, stopping distance is reduced. Next, find an empty stretch of road and practice stopping smoothly. Without ABS, just mashing down the brake pedal as hard as you can will not result in the quickest stops because the car begins to skid and you lose control. If there's any water, sand or ice, it's worse. In all cases you're looking to smoothly but quickly _ press_ the pedal with increasing force until the wheels just begin to lose traction or "chirp", then ease up just slightly, and reapply pressure just short of the loss of traction. You might want to remove the front wheels and check the brake pad material to be sure they're not worn down too far, and inspect the surfaces of the rotors for smoothness. Also, doesn't hurt to flush out the old brake fluid every two years. When fresh it is amber color - not dark. If the brakes are in good working condition, you should be able to stop the car quite rapidly. The key in a "panic stop" is not to panic, but recognize that you need to control the braking properly to stop in the quickest distance. Just practice a bit. May be a bit like learning to find the "friction point" in a clutch - you go to that point and then slowly engage. With braking, you go to the point of traction loss and then slightly back off, and maintain that braking pressure. Here's one final point. There is a release agent to help the tire come out of the manufacturing mold. It can take a few miles to wear this coating off the surface of brand new tires. They say it is not necessary with today's tires, but I always drive a bit more gently for the first hundred miles with new tires as they adjust to the pressure and temperature of installation, not push right up to higher speeds for example.

Excellent and helpful points.