Today we are going to talk about Anti-Lock Brakes (ABS). Nowadays, ABS is required by law on all vehicles sold in the United States. So basically, almost all cars on the road today are equipped with some form of ABS. However, this does not mean they are all the same. Repeat: NOT ALL ABS SYSTEMS ARE CREATED EQUALLY!!!!
There are actually three main types of ABS on the market today. 2-channel, 3-channel, and 4-channel are all for sale on the market. But what does that even mean? I mean, my digital cable service has over 600 channels, does that make it better? Well....
The number of channels in the ABS refers to the amount of dedicated brake lines the ABS has coming out of it. 2-channel setups usually have one channel for the front, and one for the rear brakes. This means that the system can trigger ABS on the front wheels together, or rear wheels together. However, there is no way to correct the cars behavior from side to side.
3-channel setups have one channel for each of the two front brakes, and one channel for both rear brakes. This means that the front brakes can correct for side to side movement, but the rear brakes cannot. In essence, if the rear brakes lock up and the tail of the car starts to go into a skid, the car will more than likely spin completely around, and out of control. That doesn't sound safe....
Now we have Volkswagen's 4-channel setup. This means that each brake has its own dedicated ABS line. We can independently close and open each brake with ABS if we need to. The 4-channel system works in tandem with the car's ESP and internally mounted wheel speed sensors to keep you in control. Basically we monitor the speed of each wheel. If you are stopping in a straight line, all the wheels decelerate evenly. If one is decelerating more than another, we can adjust the brakes on all the other wheels to correct it.
Basically, we don't care if you're in snow, mud, asphalt, sand, oil, WHATEVER!!! 4-channel ABS stops you in a perfectly straight line. Every time. Period.
Join me next time in the Passat Blog to discuss our next safety topic.
