Quick ? on ABS, Please Help
 

My wife and I just bought a lightly used Protege 5. It's a 2002 model and we thought it had ABS because when I checked under the hood there is a fuse installed in the ABS socket and the ABS light comes on briefly when the key is in the on position. I haven't tested the brakes the old fashioned way yet but my wife tried to get the ABS to come on and she tells me that the tires just locked up.

I'm wondering if you guys can enlighten me on the Mazda options available that year. I did a carfax report and all it says is ABS optional. Do you know of a website that will tell you all the options a car came with based on the VIN? By the way, the seats say SRS on the sides and theres a red sticker in the door jam that mentions the side airbags. I know that the ABS and side airbag options are tied together in a package. Was it that way in 2002? If so, how can you check out the side SRSs.

Please help me out, my wife is freaking out because she thinks the car dealer shafted us and sold us a model with no ABS. We'll have to return it if that's the case...

Thanks Guys

Dave

mines a 2003 and i dont think it comes with ABS. and from
my experience, im glad it didnt. :p

Kenchan, does yours have an ABS light that lights up when you start the car? Do your seats say SRS on the sides? Please let me know, this info will help me greatly.

Thanks
Dave

I have a 2003 ES sedan (602 miles on it, woohoo!) and while shopping for it, I discovered that ABS is a seldomly installed option. I can't speak for the Pro5's, though.

However, the owners manual covers both the sedans and 5's, so it should tell you what to look for to determine if you have ABS or not. This is an often overlooked source of valuable information, IMHO. As for your wife saying the tires locked up, I'd be curious to know how fast she was going because I've always heard that most ABS systems won't engage below certain speeds. (The ABS on my '91 Nissan 300ZX, for example, didn't work below 20 mph.)



Old Man Wiggins

The problem with the manual is that we don't have one. The dealer, a Subaru dealer, sold it to us and said they didn't have the manual.

Does anyone have a Protege 5 without side air bags? If so, do the seats STILL say SRS on them?

I'm going to drive the car now....

I'm not sure if this will help... I have a P5 with out ABS and when I turn the car on there is NO ABS indicator that lights up on the dash. Most ABS cars I have seen do have an indicator in the dash that should come on and then go off with the system self check.

Also, for my model year (02) the option for ABS was combined with the side air bags, my car does not have these either. The only passive restraint markings on the car are the one of the steering wheel and the one on the passenger side dash. The seats have no markings.

I don't know if it's a canadian model or a US model but ALL canadian models have ABS on it.

Hope it helps you.


David

mine has no ABS light, just SRS for front, no side airbags that
i know of.

hello DaveF and Welcome to our happy little corner of the net, and to our Club. There are TWO BIG fridge'S in the corner with anything you can think of in them...help yourself...of course only take what you can LEGALLY have.

make yourself at home on one of the big fluffy couches, kick your shoes off, put your feet up on one of the tables, yes we are allowed to do that, mom don't care....and take it easy.

oh...btw....every once in a while a food fight breaks out...so you may not want to wear nice clothes here.

Welcome!!

YES, in 2002 both Side Air Bags and ABS were an option for USA cars....and yes they were tied together as a combo option. it sounds to me as though your car IS outfitted with them...or at least its supposed to be. I have a 2002 P-5 and just went and checked...there is NO ABS light that comes on when I turn the key...and rightfully so...as I do not have that option....

seeing as how you are seeing that light...and the SRS lable on your seast....you have it.

Another resource, click on the protege FAQ in the top right corner, and click the "model info." There is a section on decoding the VIN. Yours should have the 2.0liter side airbag engine code (6).

Thanks Guys!

After a short test drive I determined that my wife was not braking hard enough to activate the ABS. The car definitely has it, as I had no problem activating it. But thanks for the reasurance on the Side/Seat airbags.

I'll check out the vin decode option.

By the way, what was Mazda's warranty in 2002? 3/36?

Thanks for the hospitality. I've been on many boards before (F-body and Sportbike boards in particular) and I know that there are food fights from time to time. We don't all have to agree on everything after all.

I appreciate the help.

Dave

I think that the standard for 2002 was 3/50 (which is what mine has).

I think it depends on where you live...and when you bought the car as it was 3/36 for the begining of the 2002 model year....and I got mine in December of 2001 shortly after the model release.....however....it changed part way through the model year.

Just my .02:

Any time you are in a car and the ABS light comes on momentarily means that the vehicle has an ABS controller installed. The light simply indicates it is doing a quick self test (usually does another one at 5mph to make sure, but no light. not sure if the Protege does this but GM ABS did) and when it turns off that everything is okay. Non-ABS vehicles will never use this light, they will use the parking brake indicator light to indicate any brake system issues they come across.

Davef - Your wife may simply have heard some screeching from the system even though ABS was activating. The tires tend to squeal a little when the system is functioning normally and maximum braking pressure is applied.

ABS
 

I quite understand some prefer not to have a vehicle with ABS, primarily for racing purposes, I assume, but I consider ABS an indispensable safety feature and will never buy another car without it.

ABS is a proven factor in maintaining control of your vehicle in emergency stop situations (provided you don't freak out from the pedal pulsations and let up on the brakes). I appreciate the peace of mind they bring, and have indeed been in a few brief situations where they have activated (without consequence).

When they're working properly and aren't defective (like mine originally were), Protege sports brakes that are arguably the best stock configuration of any small car. They are consistently noted as excellent in Consumer Reports, and provide short, safe stops.

ABS is cool.

ABS is a death trap.



Shorter breaking distance? COUNT ME IN!!

Statements like this are the ones that truly get under my skin... a blanket generalization that adds nothing to the discussion going on.

Can you cite sources for this?!? Shorter straight line braking? Braking in a panic stop when steering control is required? Wet conditions? Dry conditions?

Interestinly when a professional driver was putting a Dodge Viper through its paces for Road and Track they had this to say about the ABS:

"Overall, he clearly appreciates the brake package, especially the presence of ABS in both the SRT-10 and the Competition Coupe. "It allows you to drive the car into the corner out of control and bring it back in," Archer says with his quick smile. "On the straight, I got close to 150 mph before I hit those bumps. With the ABS, I could go deep into the turn and still save it. Without it, they'd be picking me out of the woods."

It would seem to me that in that case ABS is working for you and not against you.

While I am not a huge fan of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety the do have a decent write up on some of the benefits (and some situations where not having it makes for shorter stopping distances) of ABS.

For more information the NHTSA has a 1994 study that shows cases in which ABS helps and does not help. The short of it was that it seemed to reduce the instances of multi-car collisions, but increased the instances of "run-off" type accidents (single car ending up off the road).

In general the agreement on ABS, from all I have read on it, is that it can indeed extend your stopping distance on dry straight line stops (though not by much) and that it really helps when trying to maintain control in a sudden stop on wet roads. There are cases as well where the plowing effect of a stopped wheel actually helped in snow and gravel.

The other thing that I have picked up is that many of the disadvantages with ABS is people not knowing what to do in the case of the emergency stop. They just panic and stomp on the brakes and do not try and steer the car. Or if they do steer, they put it into a worse direction causing more damage.

I personally do not have ABS on my car, I could not get the P5 with a standard transmission and ABS (they did not have one and I could not wait for a special order). Had I had the option to wait for a car with ABS, I would have done so. I have not read sufficient information to sway me from my belief that in most of the situations that I will encounter ABS would be in my benefit.

-JJB

Not to mention that most drivers don't know how to stop in the first damn place so ABS keeps them from locking up their tires and killing themselves. It takes a very good driver to beat the brain box in most conditions.

1994 is kind of old for a study. Most of the systems, especially on the high end, have improved greatly since then.

I agree, but it is one study that showed a point other than the one I was standing behind. I have a bunch more ABS related sites bookmarked at home, but this was one I had a link to on my HDD at work.

Sure on a Viper it's better, but Vipers handle like bricks with comical wheels not intended for brick wheel applications.