Is it possible to Upgrade to ABS?

Tempus · Post by **Tempus** » February 2nd, 2007, 6:56 pm

Some recent winter driving experiences have made me wish I had ABS brakes on my GS.. Thing is that mine didn't come with them.

However I notice that some MX-3's DID come with ABS brakes. This makes me wonder if it's at all possible to retrofit my vehicle with an ABS system. Does anyone know answers to the following:

1) is it even possible
2) what parts would need to be replaced
3) what the aproximate cost in parts would be? (is this something you could safely 'junkyard' out of another vehicle?)
4) would I have to be insale to undertake this?

Tried searching for this, but apparently I'm the first person nuts enough to be asking this question.

Tunes67 · Post by **Tunes67** » February 2nd, 2007, 7:25 pm

No.. there have been one or two others that insane

You can do it.. but its not cost effective to do so. Also.. certain parts become more expensive down the road.. like the struts.. they have a little clip or bracket specific to the ABS sensor wire or something.. so they charge like $50 more per strut or something stupid like that, when you go to get new ones.

Finding all the parts (and I wont pretend to know what all is needed even) would be the tough part I bet. You might get lucky and find them in a junkyard.. maybe Covey's up in Marysville might have a donor car you could get all the parts from. But if you have to start buying new.. it will get very spendy very fast. As a matter of common sense.. if the car you are planning to get the brake parts off of has front end damage.. dont trust any of the brake parts for your car just to be safe

Others on the board here might be able to tell you if there were any other mazda's that used the same ABS sensors & parts as our MX-3's did. Hope this helps.

Tunes67

Tempus · Post by **Tempus** » February 2nd, 2007, 7:53 pm

I guess cost effective is a very subjective thing. I mean what's the value on a feature like ABS brakes? I know the insurance companies place a value on such things, but I doubt my ins savings would be enough to pay for the upgrade.. (unlike for example putting an alarm in your house, which gets paid for pretty quickly).

If you never end up needing them, it would be a waste of money. If they help keep you from wrecking,

it might be highly cost effective..

Safety features like ABS, traction control, airbags, etc are one thing that makes buying a new car somewhat attractive. OTOH the cost of a new car can pay for a LOT of maintance and upgrades to an already fully paid for MX-3. As an example, if you got say a new Mazda 3, and ended up with a financed amount of 18000 (including the interest) that's $300 a month.. That buys a lot of maintance and work on the old MX if you ask me..

So this is one that I'd like to explore, as it all figures into a decision I need to make right now, which is Fix up and keep the MX3, or buy a new car.. If I didn't love the MX, it would't be such a hard decision..

Tunes67 · Post by **Tunes67** » February 2nd, 2007, 8:03 pm

I dont want to talk you out of getting ABS.. if thats what you want to do.. go for it man

My personal choice is not to have them.. I dont like the way they feel when I slam down on the pedal. Lots of folks say they are superior and help prevent accidents.. but thats only if you dont pump the brake pedal.. I am old school and pumping the brake pedal is how I stop quickest.. Just one persons preference. Have you ever driven a car with ABS before? For typical commuter situations its all good.. And while I am no racer.. I still like the more solid feel of non ABS brakes... though the insurance reduction would be nice

Tunes67

Tempus · Post by **Tempus** » February 2nd, 2007, 8:28 pm

Trust me, I'm even older oldschool than you..

and nope I do have to say I've never had an ABS car before.. My first several cars (starting with a 65 barracuda) predated ABS by many many years.. And none of the later ones (newest car we own is a 1999 Protoge) were delux enough models to come with ABS. I understand the feel is a bit weird, but this old dog is still up to learning new tricks if it makes for a safer ride.

and I've a fair bit of experience driving in snow and ice having grown up in Minnesota.. (my first time behind the wheel was on a frozen lake in the middle of winter) so trust me I know to pump the brakes..

but no matter how much coffee you drink, there's no way by pumping the brakes that you can modulate the brake pressure like an ABS system does.. I've seen the tests, and not even the most skilled of drivers can stop the same car without abs in less distance than with abs.

I don't want to talk me out of ABS either, it will be my wallet that does that if I discover there's no inexpensive way to do a conversion, and do it right at that.. ( I say inexpensive because there's no way that 'cheap' and 'brakes' really belong in the same sentence.

So who knows I might have to go haunt coveys or something.. after I get the bodywork and such done. that's going to have to come first in any case.

hgallegos915 · Post by **hgallegos915** » February 2nd, 2007, 11:35 pm

I REMOVED ABS from my car.. what an annoyance..

Tempus · Post by **Tempus** » February 3rd, 2007, 12:40 am

Dare I ask why you found it an annoyance?

Yoda · Post by **Yoda** » February 3rd, 2007, 9:23 am

A basic list of parts needed would be as follow
4 complete axle hub with ABS sensor rotor.
4 speed sensors
1 ABS Motor
1 ABS CPU
ABS relay assy
Complete chassis wire harness for car with ABS (not the same as conventional brake harness)

The most labor intensive parts of the swap will be ripping out the non ABS chassis harness and installing the ABS harness. It looks like the dash will have to come out. I was just looking at the factory ABS and the gromet where the extra wires for the ABS harness should pass through the firewall under the dash I remember using to pass a couple 2 ga power cables to the rear of my car. Also don't bother trying to use recycles speed sensors. The don't seem to like being disturbed once removed 50% of the time they don't seem to work anymore. A real pain in the a-- for mechanics changing struts.

Vanished · Post by **Vanished** » February 4th, 2007, 1:24 pm

Why do the speed sensores have anything to do with changing struts? I just swapped all four of my tokico/eibach strut/srpings to my ABS car and i didnt' have to unplug anything or "distruped". I just took off the bracket and zip tied the cable to strut in a similar fasion.

Also, I hav ABS on my new mx-3, none on my old one. I'll tell you, here in saskatoon, its very nice to have it. You have alot more control in winter. You can still have solid brakes. Think of it as everytime you brake its going to grab just that much harder rather than sliding. I find it actaully works best when your don't hammer on it (on pure ice) and if you let up abit.

I say go for it, it would be alot of work but i mean, if you have alot of ice/snow buildup in your streets, it would be worth it.

Tempus · Post by **Tempus** » February 4th, 2007, 3:13 pm

We typically only get a few days of snow a year, but this last year or so has been a few weeks..

The problem is that most folks around here are clueless when it comes to driving in snow.. So if you have to go out, you want all the extra control you can get. biggest problem is tons of folks in big SUV's that for some unfathomable reason think that they are immune from inertia just because they have all wheel drive (as if we don't ALL have all wheel brakes!)

Doesn't help that my tires are not M&S rated. I swear if this kind of weather keeps up I might just get a second set of rims to mount snow tires on so I can switch out when needed.

Around here the much more common traction problem is getting a light misting of rain after a week or so without it.. just enough to liberate oil accumulate on the roads but not enough to wash it off, so the roads can be really slick sometimes

In any event I expect ABS would help in both sitations