Hi all,

I had a quick question. The other day we had some freezing rain and then a little light snow on top of that, which made the drive home from work a little more interesting than normal. Since the entrance to my neighborhood slopes down a little before I have to make a left hand turn (and the road was not yet cleared), I was concerned about sliding so I took it nice and slow, and gave my self plenty of room to slow down and turn left. Anyway, as I started to brake (gently) before the turn the ABS kicked in and I sailed right past my turn further and further down the hill (luckily the road was fairly empty). After the ABS had been on for about 10 seconds (and the car not realy slowing at all), I noticed that the ABS turned off (even while I was applying the brake) but I kept sliding. Is this normal? Does the ABS turn off after a while to prevent overheating or something? How do our ABS sensors detect wheel slippage?

Anyway, luckily I was able to regain traction about half way down the hill without hitting anything and made it home without any dings.

Thanks.

 

that sounds odd. A week or so ago I had my ABS engaged for a good 5ish seconds and I had nothing like that happen. Not sure what to tell you on that, but it might be something along the lines that it would prevent something from breaking...

 

Is it just me or does the ABS seem to be louder on the maxima then on other cars? My previous car didn't have ABS, so the first time the ABS engaged in the max I thought something was broken lol

 

It's normal.

It's quiter than most cars I've induced lock up in.

 

I agree with Nietzche.

My ABS is much quieter than even my other Nissan vehicle. I had an '01' Quest and it was really loud.

 

Normal? For it to shut off after a certain amount of time? Seriously? Doesn't sound right. Like PrjctMax, I've had mine engaged a couple of times during our freeze about 5 seconds a pop, but mine remained on until I came to a stop.

 

Agreed on both points.

There was this other thread on the org recently where somebody wanted to disable the ABS and somone recommended to "slide" the car couple of times with ABS kicking and after like 5 times it wil disable itself, I guess a smart option as ABS might be detrimental in certain conditions. If I could only find that thread.

 

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread.php?t=510081

 

I agree as far as I've had ABS experience, which is limited. I only have experience with ABS on my Max and my pickup truck -- the truck is much noisier than the Max (but it has 4-wheel drive, so I take it out in the snow more than the Max).

 

From the manual: The ABS does not operate when the vehicle speed is 6 MPH or less.

I also suspect that if you pump the brakes enough the ABS may back off and put you back in control.

 

Ah, thanks. I wasn't paying too much attention to the speedometer when this was happening, so I may have infact slowed down (very slightly) to drop below 6 MPH. I couldn't have been going much faster than that before I engaged the brakes, so this seems likely.

Thanks everyone!