Well, this morning, here at minneapolis, we had the worst weather, the roads were icy and slippery all over.

So this morning , whenever the car did not stop for the applied brake force, there was this huge growling noice and my brake pedals was hitting back at my foot with a force and I felt like something is really trying to stop the wheel in a pulsating mode... I occured atleast 5 times and now my feet hurts...

Is this how ABS kicks in? This is my first car with ABS, pls. pardon this newbie for such a stupid question....

 

One Word Answer "yes"

 

Yes, the growling and pulsation at your feet is the ABS kicking in. It's normal..Remember not to pump the brakes. ABS does it way faster than you can. Some say ABS is awesome...others hate it. I still have yet to make up my mind.

 

If this is how ABS works, then i am not for it.. Oh man, it was really scary and when it kicked for the first time, i thought I broke my "break system". I almost pi$$ed my pants

Thanks for the info guys!!

 

now this is the first time i heard anyone state the ABS hurt their feet. what are you, some sort of Girlymon?

EDIT:

 

That's what I was thinking about as well... I've had ABS and Brake Assist help me in the nick of time with both of my cars, and I've never had it translate that roughly up to the pedal.

Then again, those times when I was braking, I was doing it hard, so even if the pedal had tried to push back, it probably wouldn't have moved much...

Might be warped rotors though... that you can feel easily on the pedal during panic braking. Not strong enough to hurt your feet, but certainly more than ABS... IMO.

 

Silvermax; You should have felt a light pulsing feeling under your feet but not to a point where your feet hurt. That is a first I have ever heard from anyone with ABS with any type of car. Are you sure your not exaggerating a bit here? I personnally think its great to have especially in the snow. It's no fun when someone cuts you off and your wheels lock up and you begin to slide and can't stop.

 

Yeah, i guess i exaggerated. it did not hurt to that level. But it happened thrice in a short span of time ( think within a minute or so)... , was also braking hard.. and had that repelling sensation for some time....

 

uprecently, car has started making the squealing noice when I brake for the first few miles and only when it is parked out in the cold for long.....

Hmm.. will check for the wrapped rotors. Thanks for the suggesstion!!!

 

Did your wheel shimmy at the same time that the pedal was pulsating?

And also, if it happened 3 times in a minute, you were probably going too fast.

 

Nope, there was no steering wheel shimmy...

No, I was going only at 20MPH, But the traffic was moving and there were lots of panic braking infront of me... which made me slam the brake

 

My car was "squealing" (in reverse only though) and the brakes pulsating during soft braking -- and wheel shimmy at highway speeds. I took it to the dealer and the front rotors were warped (only 10k miles!). The brakes were fine though, 65% in the front.

 

I get the squealing noice both moving forward and reverse.. But only for the first 2 miles.... May be I am in the early stage of Wrapped rotors....

But one good thing was, the goodyears did stick to the ground... no spinning at all... but all other cars in the near vicinity were spinning to hell....

 

I get a louad break squeel early in the mornig (when it's cold) during the first couple of stops (it use to be much worse - but the dealer wouldn't fix it). I, too, have been through the warped rotors bit at 11.5K.

 

Yea, feels like the pulsing and the sound might make you wonder for a second but that is how they work. Never felt it in the Maxima, but my Camaro with the Nitto 555 when it hit some ice in Idaho did that a few times. Never hurt my feet. Hell, I had military boots on though.

Made me feel safe knowing the system was working. Sometimes it is weird having the car work for you. Took me a while to get used to the BMW with traction control when you could feel it work as well. Normally, we never use most of these features in everyday driving, and when they kick in, they might catch you offguard...but nowadays, that is what cars do for you. If the ABS kicks in, just keep you foot on the brake. Your foot hurts though.....LOL....that kinda made me crack up.

 

Girlymon. Not Girlyman.

Mike

 

it is now fixed.

 

Doubtlessly the impact of the ABS kickback seemed stronger because silvermax was not expecting it, was not familiar with the way ABS works, and was already in a stressful driving situation.

ABS really works. Take it from a geezer who drove without it for over a million miles during the last half of the twentieth century. I cannot count the times it took every ounce of my feeble skill to bring a skidding car to a fishtailing stop without totally losing the back end. Often, only a delicate pumping of the pedal enabled me to prevent a total spinout.

ABS is toughest on folks like me who have a lifetime of 'pedal pumping' behind them, and, with ABS, have to remember to not pump. This can be 'iffy' in a fast-developing crisis driving situation.

But I am one who greatly appreciates ABS, and would be very disappointed if it was not standard on the Maxima.

I also appreciate Traction Control, and am glad Nissan has made TCS standard on Maximas built after November, 2004.

As the fairly new stability control systems (Nissan's is called Vehicle Dynamic Control - VDC), are improved, I feel certain they will eventually be recognized as a lifesaving feature every driver will want on their car. I have seen film clips of professional drivers demonstrating VDC, and I am impressed. For me, anything science can do to help out the driver is a good thing.

I began preparing to buy my '04 the day they arrived at the dealer's lots (March 8, 2003). But it took me sixteen months of watching my dealer's lot, checking this board for problems, and waiting for the exact car I wanted: Silver SL without shimmy, power sunroof, driver preferred package, with ABS, TCS and VDC. When this exact car finally arrived at my dealer, I entered the VIN # and date on my offer, which had been ready for over a year, and drove that car home the next day.

I am very glad I waited and got exactly the car I wanted.