<br>At the risk of sounding like a complete moron, i would like to relate a little incident that happened the other day.<p>I was driving my A4 1.8TQMS home from work in moderately heavy traffic, over dry roads, doing about 60-65 i would guess, in the fast lane of a 5 lane highway. I moved over briefly to let some dude in a toyota pickup with huge wheels by who was driving like a manic, riding up everyone's asses in order to get them to clear outta his path.<p>The next thing i realized after getting back in behind this guy was that he was hard on his brakes and i was about to drive into his bed. So reflexively i got HARD on my brakes, which is when the trouble started. The car started sliding immediately, first diagonally over into the adjacent lane to the right (unhappily there was no left shoulder), and when i tried to minutely adjust the wheel-- just to feel if i had any traction at all-- the car rapidly traded ends, cutting a broad arc across the remaining 3 lanes to the right until it met an oncoming mercury sable nose to nose. It then flipped back around, pointing in the direction of traffic, at which time i rwstarted the ignition and moved off the road asap. <p>Luckily, i'm ok. The collision must not have been at tremendously high speed-- or i may have been doing about 40-50 mph backwards at the time. The audi survived with a smashed front bumper/ grill/ fascia and slightly cracked left front blinker. No twisted metal (at least not on my car). No air bag deployment (either car). The AC / fan shut down on the way home-- either the fan is gone (there was a brief rattle as it quit) or the compressor, or both. I can't get the hood up to look. <p>The body work will be in the neighborhood of $1000. I'll have to see about the climate control system when the hood is raised. Thank God for insurance (state farm, $800/6 months, but not for long!!!).<p>My question is (and i am really truly bewildered about this)-- where was my ABS?! The brakes locked right up, leaving me with about 1 millisecond to try and regain control before i spun. In the past (and i'm sure we are all familiar with this), i have felt the ABS many times-- on wet roads, or pulling up to a stop light hard. There was no jittering brake pedal, just smoking, screaming tires. Likewise, no light is on to tell me there are any problems with the car, no "brake failure" warning light, nothing.<p>Should i call my dealer to ask about this? What about Audi?<p><br>

 

...not to compare cars but I had a similar thing happen on the Oakland Bay bridge in a rented Grand Am. The ABS breaks didn't - and I ran right under the bumper of the Accord ahead of me. The most puzzling thing was the fact that my tires locked up instantly and just screamed as I slid into the car ahead of me. I considered changing lanes and getting off the break but both lanes on either side of me were full and moving briskly so I had no out. I even head time to look in my rear view mirror to see who was making all that noise and if he was about to run into me. I saw absolutely no-one and quickly concluded that all that rubber squeeling was my top of the line, GM's latest, technologically advanced, state of the art piece of junk. It gave me great pleasure to drop off that thing at the Avis dealership with the entire front end destroyed.<p>Any wreck you walk away from is a small one. Too bad about the car though....

 

You survived. Congratulations. Hate to hear about the damage to the car, but so much worse could have happened. Now a few questions:<p>1)Have you tried to test the ABS since?<br>2)What year/milage are your car?<br>3)Did the front end noticably dip? (like with most cars in semi-hard to hard breaking)<br>4)Have you ever tried to lock the wheels up over 35mph (or so) before and notice the lack of front-end dip with the redistribution of even breaking force that is supposed to occur when 88lbs of force is applied to the breaks? And if so, did the same sensation occur?<p>If your ABS did not deploy (front-end dip, no brake pedal shudder felt on your foot) then take the stance with the dealer that the crash happened due to ABS failure- period end of discusion. The car should have given some feedback in the way of brake pedal shudder or a lessening of front-end dip when breaking if the ABS worked. If neither of these happened or only one or the other- your ABS did fail. You will be more likely to have everything covered by the dealership/Audi- sepecially if long as your car is still under warrenty. <p>Also-get yourself checked out just in case. You never can be too sure with that tricky piece of machinery known as the human body...

 

My answer, pray. It is possible to get the ABS to fail when on ice and you lock all four up at the same time, thus getting the car to think that you have stopped. But that was in 1993, when that happened and it was down an icy exit ramp at 60. Fortunately I hit nothing at all but it did scare the dickens out of me. this is 1999, and I am sure the ABS has advanced quite a bit since then. Check the brakes. There is something wrong with that. But also, you may have gotten into a position that the car was slidding before you even hit the brakes.<br>

 

Just a couple of days ago, same thing happened to me - the ABS did not deploy. Until now, I just thought that maybe I hadn't hit the brakes hard enough, but it sounds too much like you own experience.<p>For what it's worth, here's what happened to me:<br>- I was doing maybe 55-60 in the right lane of a 3 lane highway, approaching a slower moving car. Looked back and left, nobody, turn signal and started moving in the middle lane to pass him. But at the same time, a friendly pickup driver in the leftmost lane decided he too wanted in the middle lane and abruptly changed direction. To avoid the accident I swerved to the right and immediately hit the brakes. ABS didn't kick in but I heard the tires screaming. Car started to rapidly loose control, but fortunately lost enough speed so I could now safely compensate and tuck back into the rightmost lane, behind the car in front.<p>Well now as soon as I leave work I'll go and check the brakes. If anybody wants to investigate this, please use caution. Conditions: perfect dry and smooth road, at least 50mph, but please don't play with the steering wheel in case your ABS doesn't work too.<p>Weird, I'll keep everyone posted.<p>Andrei D<br>98.5 Red 1.8T QMS, 8K miles, stock

 

Yeah buddy, same thing happened to me a while back in Bristol with my Monte. ;-)

 

Glad to hear you're okay though...I had safety harnesses and a roll cage.

 

Hey, It's raining for once in Phoenix, so I went out to a big open parking lot at the end of a driveway, got to 55mph, and hit the brakes. Ok, I have HUGE Brembo's in front & 18" wheels & tires, but I was still able to engage ABS everytime, down to about 5mph. <p>On the track, I know the tires will still squeal a little under ABS, but you definitely feel the pedal pulse.<p>The tires squeal a lot when cornering fast, too, but usually not as loud as a passenger who has not been on the track before............

 

My point exactly: Read my prior response...

 

We're all so concerned about finding out how fast our cars can go, it never occurs to us how important it may be to find out how fast they can stop. The only times I have activated ABS have been at the track and trying to make it into the stop-box in autocrosses. Having done this in a controlled environment not only will you be better prepared out on the road, you will gain a new respect for your car's abilities. Then again you cant always be prepared for Everything... especially the way things are on our increasingly congested highways. Glad to hear that you are safe.<p>kosta