How does the Anti-Lock Braking System work?

With the exception of a Toyota concept technology a couple of weeks ago, we’ve mostly been focusing on broad technologies available in vehicles across the market with our How’s This Work blogs lately. Well, we’re going to stick with that theme for at least one more week, as this week we take a look at what exactly the Anti-Lock Braking System is and, of course, how it work.

[ LAST WEEK: How does the Tire Pressure Monitoring System work? ]

What is ABS?

ABS, better known as your Anti-Lock Braking System, has pretty much been a must in all vehicles for many years now. Chances are you have it equipped and didn’t even realize it, as there isn’t much need to mess with it very often. But without it, the safety value of your vehicle is drastically decreased. Even though it isn’t as prevalent as your blind spot alerts or lane departure warnings, it’s just as – if not more – important than any of those new safety features.

ABS was designed to do exactly what it says, prevent the wheels from locking while applying pressure to the brakes. Locked up wheels, as you can probably tell from the sound of it, is not something you want to happen on the road. It will undoubtedly cause your car to skid across the road uncontrollably, which is obviously not ideal. So ABS was created to help your vehicle maintain traction in low-traction conditions like rain, loose gravel or even snow.

As we mentioned, ABS is pretty widespread these days, but you can feel free to confirm that any vehicle you are interested in has the feature equipped by giving us a call. The image posted below shows you a comparison of a situation between two vehicles, one with ABS and one without. Obviously, it’s much better to have ABS equipped and functional. So if your car ever tells you something might be wrong with your ABS system, be sure to bring it in right away.