Thread: Is ABS offroad bad?

ABS designed for use on bitumen is less effective on gravel, but some ABS (don't know which ones) are designed to do better on gravel. Of course, experience on gravel (as on slippery bitumen) will show that stopping is going to take a lot longer anyway, so you had better drive accordingly.

As pointed out above, even if ABS increases the stopping distance on gravel, it at least lets you steer - which will help to avoid some accidents anyway.

John

I think a common mistake is to not push the pedal harder once ABS kicks-in, so as to make all the wheels work at their maximum rather than just the locking ones.

I dont like ABS off road. I have found that with my old preABS Patrol when I was driving on dirt and came to a small washout or rut I could tap the brake pedal to dip the nose and then accelerate quickly this would slow the car but also lift the nose to absorb the dip. With the Disco I found you slide into the ruts real hard.
Its a shame you cant swith it off when you need to. My father had an Exploder where you just removed a fuse and that cancelled the ABS?

Originally Posted by Jerry 68

I. My father had an Exploder where you just removed a fuse and that cancelled the ABS?

You can do that with the freelander by taking out the fuse for the Traction control (turns off the ABS as well, after all the ABS controls the T/C) . Brother used to do it for racing as the ABS was crap for racing
Don't know if the disco is the same

Originally Posted by Reads90

You can do that with the freelander by taking out the fuse for the Traction control (turns off the ABS as well, after all the ABS controls the T/C) . Brother used to do it for racing as the ABS was crap for racing
Don't know if the disco is the same

Don't know about the Disco but I have heard with the Defender if you remove the fuse it will disable TC but you have put up with the warning light on the instrument panel.