Well about 3 months ago I was driving home from my ex's and I took a 30mph turn at 65mph. Hey it was dark. Anyways, went off the road, drove down the side of a ditch and when i was about to correct I hit a cement ditch thing and it sent me air born with the nose of the car facing down. For a few seconds I thought it was going to flip on its top but it came down....hard. Well I got out really fast and checked all the ground effects and I was looking for the worst, I figured I had totaled it. I mean I hit HARD. But nothing but a bunch of scratches. Dont know HOW I got around not damaging something. I had about 60% of the grass out of the ditch in my grille, under body, and such. But I noticed after all that the air bag didnt even budge. What could have caused that?

 

look behind the front bumper cover, there is a sensor with a yellow connector i believe. That is the sensor to deploy the air bag, u have about 7-8 of those scattered through out the car.

 

How much does the airbag weigh?

 

i had a similar problem when i first got my 91 almost 5 years ago. the first night i was allowed to drive the car myself (it was a 5 speed and i didnt know who to drive a manual when the car was bought for me. it was also a 17 bday present). well anyways, i came around a corner doin bout 35 and jammed the car in 1st. fishtailed the car bad. instead of letting off the gas, i flored it (stuid stupid stupid). i hit a tall curb (14-16" tall) at bout 50. got 3 wheels on the sidewalk. put a 1/8" dent in the front pass side rim and completly shot the front end in the car. the curb tore off the complete ground effects on the front of the car. the air bag NEVER went off (the cd player also didnt skip). well when i took the car to get it fixed i found out the relay for the air bag went bad. i was glad i hit a curb instead of a car.

im sure its been long enough now, but except for my car not having the ground effects, it visually looked like there was no damage. then i tried to drive it the 1/4 block home. it could not turn left and when u turned right it make a really really loud noise. the complete front end was destroyed and the car never would balance correctly after that.

 

here is a pic of the front ground effects after the "curb incident"

 

IT TAKES ALOT MORE THAN THAT TO SET OFF AN AIRBAG

i learned this in mechanic school..........

you'd literally have to smash your entire front end in............
even then the severity might not be enuff..........

 

Hmm I have seen 3rd gens bags go off with a 10MPH bump into the car in front of them. Thats when they should go off. Any forcefull stop not applied by the brakes IE you slamming into something SHOULD trigger the inertial trigger located in the bumper(not to mention the other 4-6 other triggers located throughout the car). I have had the ones in my 91 go off when I hit a parking lot light pole at maybe 10 MPH, No real damage to front end, repaint and pop out the urathane indentations and it was fine.

 

and who is a GM ASEP trainee???

i dont see that title under Mr. Camaro Hunter D's sig....................


hunter, if you'd like to insult me, you can either stop or keep doing it..........

if you keep doing it: i just dont really give a **** becuz you are worthless trash

if you stop: maybe you can grow up and we can all get along






why cant we ALL get along????

 

Uhmmm if your a GM ASE Trainee let me know the town that you will be working in so I will NOT TAKE MY CAR(S) there!

And Just cause you MAY get the paper does not mean you know anything. I have worked with many a ASE MASTER TECHS and they have asked for my help on figureing out something more then once. All ASE CERT means is that you can read a book, AND remember enough of it to pass a test.

I was simply correcting you. If you have to have the front end of your car halfway smashed in to SET OFF THE AIR BAG theres no need for the air bag, you'd already be DEAD FROM THE IMPACT!, But I see that as comon sense...

And it seems I know more about cars then you.. sad. And your going to school for it too.... I am done with you.

 

Both of you shut up. I just think that the reason that my air bag didnt go off is simply because of old age and one or more of the sensors are bad. Then again I dont want my air bag going off. Back in the early 90's is when they were killing all those people cause they were coming out at mach 2 speed.

 

like monkie said, im also glad my air bag didnt coe out when during the "curb incident". but i also know that one of the air bag sensors was destroyed when i hit the curb. that was the best learning experience any teenager could get from driving recklessly. $1k for fix the front end of the car and no one was hurt. i know it sure slowed me down ALOT.

 

Well one of the main reasons that alot of people got killed in the early stages of airbags were that they were not wearing seatbelts when they went off either.(Instant broken neck)

I was not saying anything about your bag not coming out when in all reality it sounds like it SHOULD have. You found you had bad parts. Now if that was a situation when the bags were in the position of either breaking your nose(Inevitable always happens) or you getting perminately hurt you would be really pissed that they did not go off. Then the impending lawsuit, that as soon as it was discovered it had bad parts your outta a **** load of money.

T-Top said that it has to be a break neck impact for the bag to go off, thats not how they were designed to operate. If your hitting something THAT HARD your already dead from your internal organs rearranging themselves.

It really does not matter to me cause I have removed the air bags from both of my cars. I hate them personally. If the system is working properly it does not take very much to set them off and it costs WAY to much money to replace them.


This was not meant to start an arguement. Simply to point out that the bags were not working properly. Which they were'nt.