Potential Owner - FRS/BRZ ABS question
 

Hello all, new to the forum. I will start by saying that I don't currently own a FRS/BRZ but I am certainly in the market and was impressed by a test drive this week. The car will be bought for spirited driving and track days mostly. While reading the pedal dance thread (if memory serves right) I came across the "ice mode" that can affect the ABS system. After researching further I found out almost all ABS equipped cars can be affected by this (happy to learn about this new bit of info here!!) and it seems to be something you have to drive around. So:

How often does this seem to happen to you all tracking your cars?

Is it relatively easy to drive around?

Thanks!

I've only encountered ice mode once over the course of more than 50 autocrosses, and 10 trackdays (during an autox). I don't left-foot brake and the people who do are the ones who report higher instances of ice mode.

Of all the things to be worried about, ice mode is pretty low on the list.

Never when not in diagnostic mode.

While in pedal dance at the local autox venues I can repeat it if I'm too aggressive at initiating braking. I've done about 10x autox days with it off since learning it, haven't tripped it the last six events or so.
Ran all last year without it because I didn't understand the nuances and the ice mode seemed random without enough testing time under my belt.

I haven't run it at the track yet but I don't think it will be an issue as I don't plan on stomping on the brakes there, smoothness is more important at 100+ mph after all.

Highly recommend testing out pedal dance on a test and tune skidpad, back to back with normal traction control off, the difference becomes more obvious in a controlled scenario than when running it in a scenario you're not intimately familiar with.

Ice mode depends a lot on driving style - some people have no issues, let their friend drive their car, and their friend has lots of issues. If your previous car was an ABS-free FWD you might find it a bit of a harder transition as I did. The sorts of insane trail braking I could pull off in the Celica (on some turns, braking point after turn in!) simply don't fly on an FR platform.

If you have issues, you can remove 95% of them by getting all your braking done in a straight line.

The stiffer your front sway bar, the more likely you are to have issues.

All of my problems occurred while autocrossing, because you are constantly changing directions and you frequently ask the car to multi-task. Never had an issue at the track although I haven't done many of those. Honestly can't remember the last time it happened as I've learned to drive around it.

The important part to remember about the pedal dance is you lose your electronic brake distribution (EBD), which will promote rotation when trail braking but also turn your ABS into a single channel system. So if one wheel gets light and starts to lock up it will pulse all four corners. If one wheel gets too light and the system decides it's on ice, it will cut the brake booster. For this reason, especially in an autocross environment, I prefer to lean on the EBD since I feel it will tolerate a single wheel getting light better than it does with the pedal dance.

It can happen every time, if you make that specific driving error.

Yes, under normal circumstances, you should never run into it; you don't have to go out of your way to "drive around" it, unless you've somehow built up a very bad habit of going from throttle to JAMMING ON THE BRAKES WAY TOO HARD (aka braking in a manner that would lock up the tires instantly without ABS).