Since I stipulated "wet conditions" quite clearly in my first post, and it still raised questions, I immediately smell an open door to liability.

A few years ago, some moron who couldn't find the business end of his wrench (and perhaps his own ass), destroyed his oil pan by jacking the car up by the drain plug. This is because he grossly misunderstood, and misinterpreted very EXPLICIT instructions. He happened to be a starving litigator, or ex-law student, or something. And he tried to peg a bunch of people here for "making him wreck his car".

Now, when I hear a question like "you said to do [this or that]", coupled with possible consequences of said action, the hair on the back of my neck stands up.

In other words, just WHAT IF you 'tested' your ABS by hammering your leg down on the pedal, thereby MAYBE unknowingly destroying an aged geezer of a master cylinder. Or maybe it was already wheezy and old. But the signs showed up in a day or so of your 'test'. Then you, or someone, piles up because the brakes lose much or most of their function.

Then: "you said that I should...", "You told me to...", and "Now look what happened because of what you told me to do."

Or whatever. It could go any number of ways, but I think that in this case, I will retract my statement based on liability, rather than serviceability. It is similar to someone coming into your building during a big snowfall, and saying upon entering, "It's really, REALLY, REALLY slippery on your front stairs!"

Then when they leave, there is a little 'accident'. Whether real or not, they warned you. Telling them to "watch their step" isn't good enough; they'll just say "I did watch my step." And you're still liable. But if you ran out and salted and shoveled the stairs when they told you, that is different. Then if they fell on their ass, you at least made reasonable efforts.

Call me paranoid; I'll call myself careful. And I assure you, I have more experience in matters of liability than I am disclosing here.

In the interest of safety, I recommend not driving your car in any way other than you normally would drive in the course of daily travel. Anything outside of that would be at your own risk. That includes driving in such a way as to activate ABS brake systems outside of what could be considered "normal" driving habits for you or anyone.

I assure you that my statements are not personal, in any way, shape, or form.
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chris herbst, near chicago