Can an older car with ABS have ‘Brake Assist‘ installed? Would you need a programmable standalone to make this work? Or an extra computer system?
Years ago I had the Gold edition Dodge that was push button. That was suppose to be the biggest thing to have in your car instead of a gear shift. There were buttons on the left side of the dash board. If you wanted to go in reverse you just pressed the R button in, D for drive and so forth.
I know that Chrysler and Ford put out vehicles with the push button automatic trans. There is a row of buttons across the dash that actuate the shifter on the auto trans. (I believe) they were not very reliable but I have never owned one to be factual. I do know they were not all that popular or all current cars would have them. This type of shifter is currently available on big trucks as all of the trucks in my fleet have them Freightliners, G.M.C.'s, Macks, Internationals and Volvo trucks with automatics. If you are looking for a rare vehicle, This one qualifies. It is no different than driving any other automatic trans vehicle.
I had this push button system in 1961 Dodge Custom 880. Torque flight automatic transmission. It was a bulletproof system which I torture tested many times as I was 18 at the time. This car was a beauty, 2-door hardtop, long and sleek, white exterior with bright red interior, 361 cu. in v-8. The buttons were in a single column on the left end of the dash. P-N-R-D-2-1. Canadian manufactured. It had side by side duel head lights and tail lights like those of a Chrysler. Wish I still had it.
I had a friend that operated a high performance driving school. He told me that a good professional driver can actually stop a car in less distance with standard brakes. The operative words are good professional. He went on to say ABS made every driver a reasonably good professional driver when you are considering braking ability. My main concern with ABS is what is going to happen when these cars start aging and the system fails. It does fail to a standard brake mode, I'll give you that much. The problem I see is after a number of years folks will forget how to modulate their brakes manually. I see a lot of skids and collisions resulting. For those of you who doubt these failures will occur, I offer my vehicles as proof. The family has three vehicles equipped with ABS, two of the systems are working fine. The one on the 1/2 ton Dodge pickup has failed. I guess I am old fashioned but I still prefer manual brakes (disk on all four corners are great). I don't even like power assisted brakes.
Clarify brake assist. You mean power brakes? If that is what you mean then all ABS equipped cars have power assist already added and there is nothing further to be done to improve the braking system. Now if by chance your referring to the latest cruise control that keeps a certain distance between cars or the one that automatically brakes if your approaching too fast.well I would not trust ANY addon device that attaches to my brake system. But I'm sure it is possible to add something but no idea who or where to find this.
