Ask Jack: Got That Maxima On Lock?

This week’s episode of Ask Jack is all about the magic boxes that separate today’s cars from their predecessors — and the unintended consequences of when it all goes wrong.

Reader Eiriksmal writes:

I hope I’ve startled you with this bold introduction. There’s a question I have that only you can answer … probably. It takes a sophisticated man with all sorts of worldly experience that I lack.

You see, I drive a car without antilock brakes, traction control, or stability control. I’m a whipper snapper who’s only been driving 14 years, so I never knew an era without ABS, at the very least. My beloved sixth-generation Maxima, what with the six-speed manual, has a malfunctioning ABS module, so the ABS and TC (no yaw sensor was installed on the 6MT cars — ESC was autotragic only) are kaput. I’ve driven it sans braking assistance for 2.5 years, but today was my first heart-clenching episode caused by a lack of experience with driving an ABS-less car.

I noticed when bedding in some new brakes recently that the back end tries to come around the front in a panic stop after the wheels lock. Sometimes it just squirms a little, other times it would step the back end out a solid 6-8 inches. This confuses me. When I’m pointing in a straight line, holding the steering wheel tight, and jamming the pedal to the floor, why does the lighter back end try to rotate around the heavy nose?

Today, a jerk in an Escape lumbered out in front of me …

This sounds like trouble.

During the Friday qualifying for our AER race, we started experiencing a cornucopia of ABS issues. Early activation, uneven activation, and a pedal that went between “high-hard” and “on the floor.” With very little time to troubleshoot, we ended up disconnecting ABS via the fuse.

This fixed all of the above problems, but it led to another one. In most close-to-modern cars, the balance of pressure between front and rear brakes is set by a proportioning valve. In a race car, it’s typically adjustable to suit conditions. In a street car, like my mother’s 1977 Cutlass or my 1990 Fox, it’s a fixed valve that represents a best-guess approximation for all possible situations.

In many modern cars, however, proportioning is done via the ABS block. And why not? The ABS block is busy doling out all sorts of brake-pressure changes, as often as ten times a second. Why shouldn’t it go ahead and set the proportioning in non-ABS situations? Why not simplify by having one device do all the jobs?

This works very well — in fact, it’s the best way to do things. Until, of course, you turn off the ABS. At which point you get a default setting. And that default setting is going to be an afterthought on pretty much every street car money can buy, because the manufacturer does NOT want you running without ABS and they are under no obligation to make your life easier if you turn it off.

In the case of our Miata, the default is pretty-semi-kinda-good. But it was biased a bit to the rear, which meant that the rear wheels would lock under hard braking and make things very interesting. It also caused a bit of rear-steer which I didn’t mind but which was unappreciated by some of our drivers. Keep in mind, however, this is a nearly new car with fresh equipment from ABS block to the brake disc. What are the chances the brake system on that old Maxima is all in tip-top shape right down to the rubber lines?

You know the answer to that. And that is why Eiriksmal‘s car is skidding under braking — because he’s got some weak-ass default proportion and one of the rear brakes is gripping slightly harder than the other. After all, uneven rear braking is how stability control operates. It can be equally unhelpful if it’s happening by accident. And that’s what I think is happening here. The question is whether it’s worth putting a thousand bucks, or more, into a sixth-generation Maxima.

My advice: Fix the car and enjoy it. For Nissan fans, there will never be another sedan with that kind of brute charm available. Certainly not brand-new. Fix the brakes, put some cash into it, enjoy your time. If not, as Perry Farrell once said:

The world is loaded,