Friday 21st January 2005

ABS wins What Car? awards

Other award-winners included Jaguar and VW

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The What Car? Awards have just been held, with results that may interest PH readers. For instance, the motor industry as a whole won the readers' award for the fitting of anti-lock braking (ABS).

Manufacturers voluntarily agreed to fit ABS to new cars made after 1 July 2004. ABS is said to allow drivers to stop more quickly and maintain steering control even in an emergency. The system works on the automatic principle of cadence braking, which means the driver applies continuous pressure on the brakes, steering round the obstacle.

The introduction of ABS as standard was part of an industry-wide agreement to improve pedestrian protection that also included changes to front-end design and the removal of rigid bull bars.

Other awards included:

• Best Convertible: Mini ONE
• Best luxury car: Jaguar XJ6 (right)
• Best coupé: Mazda RX-8
• Best hot hatch: Golf GTI

[q779]

I wish they would also fit a switch to turn the ABS off when it is snowy or icy

[cdp]

q779 said:

I wish they would also fit a switch to turn the ABS off when it is snowy or icy

On my old Rover 800, if you got a wheel in the air it would confuse the ABS system which would switch off. Maybe that would solve your problem.

[groomi]

cdp said:

q779 said: I wish they would also fit a switch to turn the ABS off when it is snowy or icy On my old Rover 800, if you got a wheel in the air it would confuse the ABS system which would switch off. Maybe that would solve your problem.

How did you discover this???

[Hugh1]

TVR havent been fitting ABS to all cars as standard since then have they?

[IOLAIRE]

q779 said:

I wish they would also fit a switch to turn the ABS off when it is snowy or icy

Audi did so on all their models for a number of years.

[Balmoral Green]

They dont have switches anymore because of litigation. If you forget to turn it back on, then you need it, it is the manufacturers fault for giving you the option of turning it off in the 1st place.
Thats how it went in the states anyway.

[Nuggs]

Hugh1 said:

TVR havent been fitting ABS to all cars as standard since then have they?

Hell no...

[Nuggs]

los angeles said:

Only a matter of time ...

You may well be right, although I think (hope?) that a change like that would only be brought about through necessity (i.e. in order to comply with 'nannying' legislation) rather than by way of a unilateral decision at Blackpool.

Only time will tell...

[polarbert]

i dont know if anybody knows this but i read somewhere that they dont have to offer abs as standard because they online produce a small amount of cars per year, and the fact they dont have airbags means that they cant be sold in america, o the shame, more tvrs for us brits!

shoot me if everybody knows this already

[Nuggs]

polarbert said:

i dont know if anybody knows this but i read somewhere that they dont have to offer abs as standard because they online produce a small amount of cars per year, and the fact they dont have airbags means that they cant be sold in america, o the shame, more tvrs for us brits! shoot me if everybody knows this already

[busta]

Dont worry, even if it was fitted to TVRs the fuse would blow before it ever actually started working.

Bernie