ABS...love it or hate it?

I can't stand the ABS on my 02' wrx...seems like if you have one wheel on a slippery surface, you get no brakes. I had the ECU reflash a year or so ago for the ABS, and was hoping it would help, but it actually seems a little worse than it was.
I damn near crapped my pants a few times in mall parking lots and such, going just 15mph, go to use the brakes, and the damn abs gives you nothing (maybee I should have got on board with the hella horn GB)

Is there any mods out there that could make it so you would get full brakes below a certain mph? I think it would be ideal to be able to have full braking under 35...lets face it, if you cant control a car under 35mph without abs, you shouldn't be driving!

Anything else that would help the problem? I have good tires (michelin mxv4), good brake maintanance etc.

I have thought about disabling them, but I would like to have them in case I actually need them on the highway sometime.

 

unplug the abs fuse. i dont know of any mods that let you control when abs kicks in. it was horrible on my old 02 wrx as well.

 

After the winter car control clinic last year I've found a new appreciation for ABS. It's certainly not the best choice in all scenarios but it does have it's advantages, especially in emergency situations.

 

Your ABS is about a zillion times better than the 02-05 WRX. Subaru finally fixed all or most of the issues with the '06 cars.

Bumpy road + hard breaking = soiled pants :eek4:

 

1. open hood
2. open fuse box
3. remove big azz ABS fuse
4. close fuse box
5. close hood
6. toss fuse in glove box.

 

DONT PULL OUT THE FREAKING ABS FUSE FOR GODS SAKE

it does NOT fully disable the ABS system, I'm sorry its just wrong. Not to mention the pedal pressure falls and the brakes become more difficult to modulate. On most cars the only successful way to disable the entire ABS system is to remove the sensors at the axles.

this just plain doesn't work on modern subarus, i can't attest to some of the older ones.

There is nothing wrong with ABS, just the ABS controller in the 02-05 WRX is a piece of garbage. It regularly would go off while turning over bumps in autocrosses and was absolute crap. The ABS controller in the 06+ models is the same as the STi and works beautifully.

no matter how much of a performance advantage people thing taking their abs off it, it just plain isn't. Its been proven repeatedly that the top drivers in the world driving street cars equipped with ABS use the ABS to corner faster than with threshold braking a non ABS setup. What is necessary is to use the ABS to turn and brake at the same time, greatly enhancing the ability to accurately trail brake and brake through turns.

locking up your brakes and flat spotting your tires isn't stopping the car any faster. I've had no ABS on a subaru before and while fun to drive, it just plain ain't faster. In the hands of a relatively green fast driver with a heavy car running around town with less pedal pressure, a braking system not designed for ease of modulation and the potential for a bad lockup, there is no way in hell I'd recommend someone to disable their abs, and certainly not by pulling the fuse out. I have personally driven 'defused" ABS WRX's that display erratic on/off ABS doing something crazy under braking.

 

I don't agree with the ABS on my car being that much safer...I mean, I've damn near hit a pedestrian because my car wouldn't give me brakes, whereas I know without ABS, I would have been able to stop in a very short distance.

In other words, if you need to stop the car right now...I feel it is necessary to have full on brakes.

Being able to steer while braking in an emergency situation will only help if there is a freindly place to steer into...in the instance I mentioned, the only "safe" place to go would have been backwards.

 

My 02 seems fine /shrug Brakes like a mofo and the ABS isn't intrusive at all

 

I have noticed that hard braking on washboard bumps with my '02 WRX causes a loss of brake pressure due to the ABS. But that has happened maybe 5x while I've had the car and under ideal (or not ideal) conditions. If this is happening in parking ramps at slow speeds you might have other issues.

Is the upgraded 06+ or STI ABS controller a plug and play for 02-05 cars?

 

RE92's kill the MF'bunnies

 

I was wondering that as well...when subaru had the bulletin for the ABS over bumps issue, and the offer to flash the ECU for it, I had it done, but like I said, it was no better, and maybee even worse.

 

i like my non abs

 

ABS is a good idea. in newer cars such as STis and the new legacys the ABS seems to have been refined so it works better. when the abs goes of in my moms legacy it goes so fast its unbelieveable. in my car its like. dot.dot.dot......dot...doooot.....dud. thent eh aBs light comes on and the abs shuts it self off.

Recently i have been driving without it. the wheel speed sensor at the front axle is kind of no longer in existance. so i pulled the fuse. My abs system must be primitive enough where its just dissabled. hard to explian how it feels, but no i can lock up em (poor tires)

 

i hate abs, unless its winter conditions i would prefer it to be gone.

 

I've done a fair amount of aggressive driving on rough surfaces, and I have to say that pulling the ABS fuse on my 02 WRX has always worked perfectly.

I leave it enabled when I'm driving around normally. It is of huge value in an emergency situation.

No, it's not the best ABS implementation ever. It frankly does some really stupid things.

Better than the ABS on my Sentra SE-R though, which is a 2-channel, diagonal system. In other words, if the rear passenger side locks up, it releases that brake, and the driver side front brake. Now, that's f'd up. The entire ABS computer has been ripped out of that car never to see the light of day again.

 

oh yea....I have no experience with newer systems. but I've been driving my dad's '94 legacy, pulled the fuse, and now it drives like my loyale.

 

Yeah, the older ABS systems are garbage. My '90 legacy had it and now I'm glad my '93 doesn't. The systems are usually way over sensative. I have not driven anything new so I cannot attest to how they feel.

I like trail braking and left-foot action too much to let ABS get in the way of such shennanigans.

 

ABS doesn't always get in the way of shenanigans, Piddy. You just have to know how to circumvent such things. ABS takes a second to kick in, you just gotta be on and off brake soon enough.