seems a good place for my first post...i've just recently started reading this forum as sooner or later i will deffo own a scoob and want to learn as much as i can beforehand. i currently drive the most unreliable vw golf vr6 on the planet, and also have a £90 mkII golf gti that i end up using more as its more reliable!
anyway, back to subject....i've found this thread very informative so far, especially ALi-B's long post. what year did they improve the ABS on scoob's? its most likely i'll end up getting a bugeye, is the system better on these than on a classic?
i can't deal with poor ABS again...i used to own a '00 punto sporting (embarrassing i know) and its ABS was quite frankly damgerous in poor conditions, and potentially fatal in snowy icy conditions. what was wrong with the system on the punto (and i presume the scoobs) is that it reacted too much when the wheels locked up, and wouldn't allow any locking at all (the fastest way to stop is actually to have the wheel starting to lock). now this wasn't such a big deal in the dry, but there were situations in the wet where it would back the brakes off almost completely...so you had no retardation. in the snow this was a constant thing, you NEVER had any brakes....i would litterly pootle alaong at 10mph and use the handbrake to stop. not to mention that the car had very unstable handling...snap understeer!!! (it would suddenly go straight as a die for the scenary). now, at this point i should point out that i hold a nat A racing licence and have spent five full days on silverstone race schools intensive tuition course prior to competeing. so i'm not unfarmiliar with cars moving around under me, and threshold/cadence braking. i immediately, after first driving the car in the snow, realised i had to try and disable this sytem somehow, so pulled the fuse out. unfortunately fiat, in their wisdom, had decided to set the bias very far towards the rear...so it was locking rears too easily and stepping out, too much to be safe to drive it like that. but, heres the interesting one...i did a test, in the dry, on a business park and even with it trying to swap ends under braking i could stop quicker, by over a car length, without the abs than with it from 60mph!
Anyway, i've rattled on a bit now...hope you're all awake. just to finish, the abs on the golf vr6 is much much better, it allows a fair degree of wheel lock up but is still not ideal on snow, glad i have the mkII with no abs and no pas for those conditions.
oh, one more thing....if you do disconnect the abs you're supposed to declare it to your insurance company, in the same way that you have to declare if you replace the airbag wheel with an aftermarket one.
Last edited by acf8181; 23 January 2005 at 11:46 AM.