Well i was driving home from my dads yesterday, and its a bit icy. I was slowing down for a stop sign and hit a patch of ice and i locked the brakes up. When I did that, it pulled hard to the right and took out a mailbox with my mirror. I even steered all the way to the left, and it still hit it. It pulls hard whenever I hit the brakes and dont have much traction.
Does anyone know what might be wrong? Or is my truck just a piece of crap?

 

is your steering wheel lined up correctly when you drive straight? or does is only pull when you hit the brakes...maybe an alignment might do the trick? Make sure you check your tires so they don't have any knots or eggshaped features on them. Worn brake pads, and also maybe your ball joints?

hope this helps

 

Could be a lot of things and the one obvious one might just be that you can't brake/steer well on ice in a big truck

One side could be grabbing more than the other so on the dry it seems fine but when one wheel has more traction than the other it's more noticable.

I would rip the front brakes apart then have it aligned to start. Also inspect ball joints as the guy above me suggested.

 

It's because you don't yet know how to drive a truck on ice equipped with RABS (Rear Antilock Brake System). RABS is NOT like a 4-wheel ABS. With a 4-wheel ABS, you have to keep a constant, hard pressure on the brakes to stop. This is not the case with RABS. With RABS, your front wheels can still lock up, and when they do, the front end of the truck will likely drift to one side. The difference from a truck with no ABS of any kind is that the rear end will not come around with RABS.

Proper method with RABS is to apply pressure to the brakes, and when the front wheels lock, release and re-apply--in essence, you still have to pump your brakes like a vehicle without any ABS.

It's not as good as 4-wheel ABS, but it's still better than nothing.

On edit: It will do this even if it doesn't pull when braking on dry surfaces, but you need to get that pull fixed.

Jason

 

thank you guys for the help. i know for a fact it needs ball joints and an alignment. the brakes are really touchy, so it locks up with barely any pressure.

 

The locking up you mention can be due to the moisture in the air. Once you use the breaks a bit it should clear up.

I would also recommend pulling the drums off the rear and cleaning/lubricating the rear brakes.

 

Do they lock up easy on dry surfaces too?

On Ice, you cant steer it the front wheels are locked up, have to let off the brakes to steer..