jyeung528

hit the pedal hard. if you can't engage abs, i would bleed the brakes.

to answer your question, it is not difficult to engage abs in this car, and it's not subtle, you will know when it is engaging.

Nate Tempest

Just did this, and engaged ABS fine every time. Could do it immediately by stabbing the pedal, or progressively by threshold braking then pressing harder. I did find it was a bit more subtle than in my previous car, but it definitely was no problem to engage.

Sooo either something was different during the autocross causing it to not engage (like brake fade, but I really don't think they were worked anywhere near enough for that), or more likely, it was engaging, but I didn't notice it. I suspect what was happening was that in the particular situations where this happened (like cresting a hump), there just wasn't a lot of braking force available. That would make the pulsing less noticeable, and in the heat of the moment I was more focused on the fact that the car wasn't slowing as fast as I'd expected.

So, probably nothing to see here. Thanks for the suggestion to do the obvious test!

Chibo

Well, to be fair, the ABS on this car is more subtle than a lot of cars. My E46 was smack in face noticeable, the S2000 I need to be calm and listening to the car more closely.

Nate Tempest

Yeah, ditto compared to my old Z4. Perhaps BMW ABS is just really intense.

LeonV

I can see not noticing it in the heat of the moment, especially if you're focusing hard on other things. I'd still flush the brake fluid though.

davidc1

The feel of ABS in this car may not be as obvious as others, especially in the heat of racing, but it's still easy to engage.

Try slamming the brakes on a wet surface or gravely surface. If you can't feel it, something is wrong.