Are you asking about off road in the snow, or paved streets in the snow.. Obviously off road, having a good aggressive tread with narrow tires beating wide ones. If you are talking driving the family to a ski resort, or using an 80 as a DD in snowy weather, and if you have ABS you will find in the owners manual, a warning concerning how the ABS does not work reliably on icy roads. I FOUND THIS TO BE A GROSS UNDERSTATEMENT just after purchasing my second 80..a 93 which was the first year that had ABS.
One night heading home in a blizzard after a day of skiing. I was going down canyon just below Sundance resort in Utah and came upon stopped traffic from multiple fender benders. I was going 10 mph on new BFG KO's. I gently touched my brakes, way in advance, and my ABS totally over rode my braking input. Had I not gone to the left shoulder and used the pile of plowed snow on the left side to slow me down, I would have plowed in to the stopped traffic. I live in the mountains so next day I played on the freshly plowed roads that were still snowpacked. 10 mph on level roads and I could not stop for intersections.. I would just blow through as my ABS pulsed in resistance to my stopping input. Tires and brakes would have been just fine at 50mph but not with the ABS. Temp fix was to pull the fuse which just give normal braking. Later I cut in to the wiring coming from one of the ABS sensors and installed a cutoff switch and indicator light under the dash where I can disable the ABS without getting under the hood. The reason I used the wiring from the sensor instead of interrupting the power to the ABS fuse is that the amps from the fuse were so high it melted the insulation on the 16 guage wire so I used the sensor input which when interrupted show a "fault" and the computer turns the ABS off. My current two 80s... one LC.. one LX450 are both modified to over-ride the ABS. More modern vehicles have learned how to deal with snow and ABS.
ABS absOLUTELY sucks on my rig as well.
I've done tests showing friends and family countless times how sucky it is.
Heavy snow, deep dirt or mud; any surface you want your tires to dig into to find traction or build up a mound of mass to stop, just gunna suck.
I found that out coming down a cinder hill in my 98 Dakota. Hit the brakes, abs kicked in, started rolling my tires forward in some computer attempt to "help" me maintain control. Forced me to actually accelerate. Had to ditch my truck into a berm and damn near rolled it to avoid tail ending a quad. Yanked the abs fuse and was fine the rest of the day.
Since then, I just practice in a variety of roads to see what happens in each of my vehicles.
I hit a Prius once in my land cruiser. Sombitchwas stopped at the bottom of a downhill off ramp in a blizzard at 7,000 feet. No traffic. Just parked, in the middle of the road. I hit my brakes at the top of the ramp and felt that abs pedal vibrate as it forced a hydroplane on 3-4 inches of snow, all the way down the ramp. Tapped his bumper, another 1 or 2 feet and we'd be clear. Again, yanked the abs switch, tested it, locked the tires up, she dug down to traction and stopped just fine.
Traction control, - good. Abs, - sucks.
I hate abs, I'm just nervous about what's worse. GETTING into an accident because of abs knowing that isn't an excuse in the eyes of the law? Or being a part of any accident, my fault or not, with the abs fuse pulled, and having some attorney pin it all on me because of the fuse or switch? It's like I'm forced to put my family in greater risk of being in an accident just to reduce my liability IN said accident.
God. Hate lawyers. .
