hey i have a 99 SE and im pretty sure it has ABS, im not sure how to tell...i have the ABS light when i turn the key on. but the other day it was wet out and my tires are realy bad, i was realy like 6 inch away from the rear of this guys car when he slams on the breaks. yeah my fault for tailing too close...but i just slid and bumped him. no damage at all, we wer only doing like 5km. but arent my brakes supposed to do that 15 times per second grabbing thing?? dont know what its realy called

 

what does traction control have to do with this lol? its used for takin off and stuff to give u more traction, not for when u wanna brake.

 

oops i think i mean ABS then
nvm the traction control

 

ABS. This prevents the wheels from locking. So if you have some POS tires on and if you are tailing the dude in front of you, you will just hit him. But the tires won't lock!

You need to read up on how the abs system works and tail people alot less when you are running bald tires.

 

ABS does not work under 10 km/h (6 mph).

Try slaming on the brakes at a little higher speed to check it out.

 

i dont understand when they would kick in then...
i heard my ruber sliding on the pavement as if it wher locked up..it's supposed to grab and let go a bunch of times right? is there any limit to this? like you need to be above some speed or something inconvenient
also i read this already http://auto.howstuffworks.com/anti-lock-brake1.htm

 

theres my answer thanks alot jime.
i still wonder what the reason for this is though

 

i have locked up my brakes many many times. i guess i dont have ABS !! i dont see the light for it either ! NO ABS > ABS

 

Try it again in an empty lot or a lonely short stretch of road. Once you hear that pulsating noise as well as feel it in the brake pedal you'll know abs has kicked in. Meanwhile it pays to drive defensively!

 

It has to do with the design of the ABS system. ABS detects that a wheel is locking by detecting rapid wheel deceleration that is different from normal braking. When it gets down to very low speeds its much more difficult to detect deceleration abnormalities so it shuts off.

If the designers could make them work to lower speeds they would. Mechanical systems fail to operate around 20 mph vs electronic ones which can go as low as 3 mph.

 

You should definitely have ABS since you have a 99 SE. My 99 ES has it plus traction control. You'll definitely feel it when it is working. It's fairly subtle in the Maxima compared to some other cars (my old Blazer used to make me jump when it kicked in - loud!) but you'll hear a sort of buzzing and feel the pedal vibrating. You can also tell if you have ABS cause there should be some kind of box for it's components the engine bay, but I'm not sure what exactly it looks like or where it is. Glad your "incident" wasn't worse!