o_nate

I was driving in the snow last week. The road was pretty slushy, and the VSA was kicking in during acceleration from a full stop, unless I pushed the gas pedal very gently.

I came to a stoplight, and I pushed on the brake pedal, but the car kept going. At first I thought I was sliding on the snow, but then I noticed that the brake pedal seemed to be stuck, like it wasn't going down all the way - there was some resistance to my pressing down on it. Anyway, luckily there was no one in front of me, and the light was just turning red, so I went through the intersection. After I went through, I tested the brake pedal, and it was working fine again. Perhaps if I had just pumped the brake pedal, it would have worked on the second attempt, but in my surprise, I didn't think quickly enough to do that at the time.

Has anyone ever experienced the brake pedal feeling stuck like that? I wonder if it had something to do with the snow or the VSA kicking in?

JTso

iTrader: (2)

Get it checked out ASAP!

CGTSX2004

iTrader: (1)

I have never heard of this before.

o_nate

Yes, I guess I will have to mention this when I take it in for service, which I should be doing in the next few days anyway (15000 miles).

poweredByHonda

It's the ABS working!!! The brakes are being pumped by the ABS, to avoid locking up the tires on the snow / black ice underneath... just remember to STEER the car....

sauceman

I've seen this before. It fortunately is a situation that occurs but rarely, but nevertheless one where the ABS system gets completely pwned.

What happens is, that at the moment when you are starting to brake, due to dense slush / heavy wet snow, your tires get full, and they can slide with just resistance, such as engine compression. As soon as you leave the throttle, your front wheels start rotating slower than your back wheels.

When you hit the brakes then, the ABS interprets this as some wheels are locked, and it forces the complete braking system out of action. You can press as much as you want, the ABS is holding the brakes until all the wheels turn at the same speed. I nearly killed two pedestrains because of this.

There is one solution: Pull the hand brake, and your ABS will normally disable. Then your brakes will be back full force, but with no ABS.

ABS re-activates as soon as you let go of the brakes.

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It is the single most dangerous situation that I know of the ABS can cause. And it is a pretty rare occurance. You really need very specific conditions for it to happen.

sauceman

Pumping the brakes will do no good. Besides, one should never pump the brakes on a car equipped with ABS. It hinders it's operation.

poweredByHonda

I wouldn't say it is a rare occurence.... driving in snow and ice conditions, in the city (like Montreal)... it is a 'normal' thing for the ABS to keep the tires from locking up at intersections.... it happens to me quite often enough.....

GIBSON6594

o_nate

Wow - thanks for the very informative explanation, Sauceman. What you're saying makes a lot of sense. I have to think that this is kind of a dangerous potential flaw in the ABS mechanism though. It's nice to know about the hand-brake trick, though I don't know if I'd be able to react quickly enough to engage it in a split-second situation. I guess the moral of the story is to leave yourself plenty of room to stop when driving in heavy snow/slush conditions.

o_nate

Here's another thread I found on this topic from a snow-plow board (!). One guy suggests that pumping the brakes might actually be a good idea in this situation, another one mentions that he used to pull the fuse out of his ABS system in these kinds of driving conditions:

http://www.plowsite.com/showthread.p...0&page=1&pp=20

Dan Martin

Not a good idea to disable the ABS because it does do a very good job under 99.9% of all winter conditions. Pumping the breaks once or twice should be good enough if you ever encounter a similar situation again.

sauceman

Re-read the post again. When the situation I described happens, the ABS COMPLETELY prevents the brakes from braking. It's just as if you didn't have any brake fluid left.. No braking at all.

BTW, I live in the suburbs of Montreal.