The Best Advert for ABS

[XantiaMan]

As with all statistics we can all search long enough to prove any point of view, but would you honestly expect that document to stand up in a court of law?

It was on the internet, it must be true

[HDI]

Problem with the police is they live in a mutual admiration organisation who perpetually exist in closed BS loop !!
They reject all that is outside their experience and see all road users as offenders.
I have witnessed police drivers comitting not only driving offences on the road but also just plain muppett driving , and this applies to local beat cars to traffic cars. Fairly frequently I might add.
They may go through lots of training but this does not necessarily mean they are the best drivers out there by a long way.
My driving experience extends to more decades than I will admit to now and in that time I have only had one own fault accident , and that was when I was in my 20's and have held max no claims for years. Now I have a rep for not hanging about and seeing speed limits as an inconvenience but my driving record seems to speak for itself. Many times I have saved other muppetts from having an accident with me as a result of anticipating their stupidity. However , if I'm stopped by a cop when 'not hanging about' they just see it as murder waiting to happen despite my willingness to discuss the circumstances !! Personally , I think the time I've been driving (and riding) with just that one bump and never having had to make an insurance claim due to my fault has to say something.
Must be in a rant mood

[f00lzz]

ANYWAY.. not that I don't mind going slightly off topic occasionally...

If you pull out the relevant fuse inside the cabin... fuse depending on model presumeably.. the ABS will cease to operate.

WARNING.

1. If your ABS is inoperative then (on the V6 anyway) be prepared to lock up in quite a spectacular fashion.. those big discs are very effective..

2. If you do happen to crash.. you may have invalidated your insurance by disabling your ABS..

3. You may also invalidate your insurance if you perform the 'pedal spring removal mod'..

[RoyChristie]

If we go back to the start of this thread and look at the incident..
Chlorate did a full on emergency stop, jamming the brake pedal on -
What followed next was that the engine stalled and he had no brakes due to the servo going down = very little braking effect
I take it this is a manual car.
So Chlorate blinked and a gazillionth of a second later was staring at wreckage, not good. That's a toughie, glad no one was hurt.

I fail to see where ABS would have helped in this case as there is no reserve of braking assist in this instance.

I can't see any comparison between Xantiae with ABS or even without ABS and the ZX case in question, oranges and apples


There are many interesting points in this thread; without addressing anyone specifically - I am one of the non-ABS fans, I consider it extremely intrusive and has forced me to extend my braking distances to three times what they were in my DS now that I'm in a Xantia V6. I know the V6 has great brakes - it is just that the ABS won't let the driver use the brakes properly... now I get loads of wee eejits pulling out in front of me in Audi A3's and crappy little Mercs and Beeeeemms at motorway cruising speeds (85 - 96) Saves fuel though 8)
Never had an accidental collision in 47 years to date, learned to drive in a skidpan when I was a kid.I've driven 350 miles in a hurry (3 hrs) with no rear brakes on my DSefi to get to a wedding, folded the brake line over and just went without using the brakes. Put a new brake line in the next day.
I reckon I can drive, nowadays I am half as good as I was and the roads are twice as dangerous as twenty years ago.
I have had near misses.

Cars I've had
FordPop 1100cc 1950's
Standard Vanguard III
Triumph 2000
Mini CooperS 970
Mini CooperS 1071
Mini 1100 1968 !!
Citroen ID19
Citroen DS23 5 speed Safari
Citroen ID21 Familiale 2175 4 Speed
Citroen DS23 Pallas 5 Speed (EFI gearbox) !!
DS23EFI 5 Speed - Not Pallas
CX's - 2000 series1 - DS engine type; CX 2400 Fam Cmatic; 2400 Prestige Cmatic; cx2000 alloytrash; CX 2400 Auto Efi; CX 2500 Auto Safari
BX's 1600 saloon, excellent lightweight; BX19 Diesel Safari nopower; BX19Diesel Turbo, goodfun
Xantia 1.9TD; 2000 efi series1
V6 XM
Now 2 V6 Xantias
Just adding those up makes me boggle at how much I have spent on spheres

The best handling and braking of all the cars I have driven- my dear DS23EFI, now dust.
Please feel free to return to topic;
Merry Christmas, drive with care

Roy

[Deanxm]

I fail to see where ABS would have helped in this case as there is no reserve of braking assist in this instance.

I know the car inquestion was not a hydraulic citroen but you still get a couple of pumps on the brakes with a dead engine, and so ong as you dont take your foot off the brakes assistance will not deminish in the short time it takes to stop surely? it doesnt on any of the vac assist cars ive ever driven.......

P.S Roy, nice list of cars 8)
D

[RoyChristie]

I fail to see where ABS would have helped in this case as there is no reserve of braking assist in this instance.

I know the car inquestion was not a hydraulic citroen but you still get a couple of pumps on the brakes with a dead engine, and so ong as you dont take your foot off the brakes assistance will not deminish in the short time it takes to stop surely? it doesnt on any of the vac assist cars ive ever driven.......

P.S Roy, nice list of cars 8)
D

As you can see Dean, I am no great fan of servo-assisted braking, preferring the boring old LHM split system job.
My experience of losing servo was many years back, pulling up in a Ford Transit, braking almost to a halt. then switching off the ignition while still moving, dumb, yes.
I was still on the brakes and suddenly there was no assist, the handbrake worked, result= wall remained standing.
There was no couple of pumps in that one, no engine vacuum meant no servo at all.
Scared the bejeebus outa me for sure

yep those are some sweet cars, well the Cits are anyway and the Triumph and Vanguard

[RoyChristie]

oh, I forgot,... I'd taken it out of gear too.
Hence nowt on the pedal.

[Sl4yer]

Chlorate did a full on emergency stop, jamming the brake pedal on -
What followed next was that the engine stalled and he had no brakes due to the servo going down = very little braking effect

If the braking effect diminished, the front wheels would begin to turn again and the engine would restart in a flash. I don't think that's the cause here. However, to stall the engine in this way shows just how little grip was available! Keep a safe distance people, and expect the unexpected.

James

[addo]

350 miles in three hours!

Most people have real issues sustaining high speeds like that - especially on compromised roads. I'm impressed; you don't do that without prior confidence.

[DickieG]

I've driven 350 miles in a hurry (3 hrs) with no rear brakes on my DSefi to get to a wedding, folded the brake line over and just went without using the brakes.

I'm not sure of being impressed with that boast!

[f00lzz]

I've driven 350 miles in a hurry (3 hrs) with no rear brakes on my DSefi to get to a wedding, folded the brake line over and just went without using the brakes.

I'm not sure of being impressed with that boast!

I well remember our local school crossing lady being shouted out by a local van driver because she had forced him to stop and didn't she realise how dangerous it was.... because his brakes didn't work properly !!!!!!!!

We weren't impressed with him either..

[Chlorate]

Chlorate did a full on emergency stop

I stopped following this thread a while ago.

But just to add my two cents to things, I didn't do an emergency stop.
The traffic ahead of me slowed down and I came off the accelerator and touched the brake, the road had become so slippery that the car went into a skid almost immediately, wheels locked up and all that jazz.
I managed to avoid going right into the back of the car ahead by whatever steering I could and jammed between the car and the truck next to it.
The gap I left between me and the traffic ahead of me meant I had slowed down so the relative speed of about 20 mph to them when I'd finally impacted.
Watching a door mirror disappear down the side of your car in slow motion is not fun.

I've figured that it was a combination of my tyres being awful and just having recently installed extra grippy front brakes.

Still no phone call from the truck company, but since I only knocked a side light loose from the trailer methinks they're not going to be that upset about it.

My car is in Maidstone now, waiting for the new year and the weather to clear up a little. Hopefully I can save it, or indeed hopefully it will be worth saving

[deian]

ANYWAY.. not that I don't mind going slightly off topic occasionally...

If you pull out the relevant fuse inside the cabin... fuse depending on model presumeably.. the ABS will cease to operate.

WARNING.

1. If your ABS is inoperative then (on the V6 anyway) be prepared to lock up in quite a spectacular fashion.. those big discs are very effective..

2. If you do happen to crash.. you may have invalidated your insurance by disabling your ABS..

3. You may also invalidate your insurance if you perform the 'pedal spring removal mod'..

All valid points, fair play I will just add.

1. Yes quite true, although the ABS on my mk1 xant 1.9td is VERY sensitive, i slammed the brakes on a quite spot today and it's overly gentle for my taste, i do honestly think that if i pull the fuse out it would stop quicker, my front tyres aren't amazing thought.

2. That is a very well said point, but there is a way around that would be terribly illegal for me to point on a public forum, I would not condone my trick at all, so I will zip it, one can work it out.

3. I doubt the insurance ppl would even know people would even think to think about removing the spring out of the pedal, who says it's a legal necessity anyway, it's just a comfort thing to introduce new drivers to the xantia's hydraulic tap vs. vacuum servo.

Just my thoughts.

[RoyChristie]

I'm not sure of being impressed with that boast!

It was not a boast sir, merely a necessary emergency which I hope never to have to repeat, certainly could not do it in England these days,
now it is a memory and a simple fact
all the best
Roy

[Kowalski]

I fail to see where ABS would have helped in this case as there is no reserve of braking assist in this instance.

The ABS could have stopped the wheels from locking and stopped the engine from stalling assuming it could work quickly enough. The problem here was that even if without power assistance on the brakes, he locked his wheels. ABS could have helped if there was a gap big enough for the Xantia to fit into, bit it seems that was not the case.

There is a wooden decked bridge where I live and I drive accross it regularly. When the deck on that bridge gets wet and slimy (with mud, fallen leaves and the like), it is as slippery as ice, the ABS system on my Xantia would prevent me stalling.

The ABS system on the Xantia was far from perfect, the Xantia's wheel base length changes when the rear suspension moves, I found that putting one wheel into a pothole would sometimes momentarily trigger the ABS....