So today as I walked home, it was a little wet and i was wondering to myself about downshifting vs. braking. Conventionally, brakes will slow you down much faster then downshifting and downshifting isn't too good for your car's tranny so i've heard. So say you're driving in slush or snow, bad conditions. if you step on your brakes by the time ur tires try to grip and ur ABS tries to stop lock up it takes forever for you to stop. Now in this situation if you were to downshift would you slow down faster because you use the engines power which slows the car down but could that lead to locking up the wheels and skidding?

Basically my question is, in terrible traction conditions, would downshifting cause ur tires to lock up and or be better then applying brakes.

Thank you and i hope to look forward to yet another interesting discussion!