And I would have thought that no normal person would give a flying fuck.
Guess we were wrong.
You can have ABS with drum brakes and the reason why I mentioned it is that one of the disadvantages of drum brakes is that they’re a lot more prone to locking up than discs, but if it has ABS that’s less of an issue.
My Scion Xa has front disc/rear drum and ABS. It stops pretty well, although having a 5-speed to transmission brake helps. It probably also helps that the car weighs about 2300lbs.
My ABS is REALLY loud and I get a really alarming pedal-thrum when it engages. I suspect it’s because it’s a really cheap little clown car.
Gets great mileage, though. I hope a semi truck and I never meet. I doubt I would survive, side airbags or no.
Loud? The ABS shouldn’t make any noise at all. It’s just sensors and an electronic circuit with a servo in the pedal.
Well, it shouldn’t make any noise or do anything noticeable when it’s not engaged, but I’m not aware of any ABS that doesn’t have pedal pulsation and some noise when it’s actually operating.
I’m afraid there’s quite a bit more to it than that, most notably a pump and a number of valves. Pretty good description here.
On many ABS systems the hydraulic pump is really loud. You have to move brake fluid against a couple of thousand pounds of pressure. That takes a good sized and often quite loud electric motor and pump.