Air bag question
Madeleine
damaging the grill, hood, front driver's side panel, driver's door and
the area immediately under my gas cap which is directly behind the
driver's door.
When I got my estimate today (almost $3500 in damage) the man asked if
the air bag deployed. I hadn't even thought about it. This is my first
vehicle (99 VW Eurovan Winnebago Class B Camper) with air bags. Does a
collision have to be on the bumper for the air bags to explode? I'm
glad they didn't of course. I had my seat belt on and wasn't injured so
there was no need for the air bags, but I'm just wondering....
--
Peace, Love and Serenity,
Madeleine
http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/madewar/
www.anticattic.com
Neon John
wrote:
>When I got my estimate today (almost $3500 in damage) the man asked if
>the air bag deployed. I hadn't even thought about it. This is my first
>vehicle (99 VW Eurovan Winnebago Class B Camper) with air bags. Does a
>collision have to be on the bumper for the air bags to explode? I'm
>glad they didn't of course. I had my seat belt on and wasn't injured so
>there was no need for the air bags, but I'm just wondering....
There's almost always a sticker under the hood somewhere to show the mechanic
where the air bag accelerometers, control box, etc are located. Most of the
time there's an accelerometer on each side of the front bumper or just behind
it. There may also be one in the dash or perhaps in the center console.
<soapbox on>
Of course, you can do what you want but me, I have the air bomb disconnected
in my one vehicle that has one. I've seen too many people severely injured,
including an aunt who was blinded, by spuriously deploying air bombs. Just
this week I saw another one. The local AutoZone delivery guy hit something in
their pickup. Maybe a fireplug, maybe a bridge abutment. Whatever, it pushed
in the passenger side headlight up to about the tire. The kind of minor toof
that just pisses you off but does little damage. Only this time the air bomb
went off. It blew his hands off the wheel, spraining both wrists and giving
him rather nasty burns on the insides of both arms. If he hadn't been a
fairly large guy, it would probably have broken his arms.
My aunt was t-boned in the passenger side door by a drunk driver. It was a
severe wreck and she suffered other injuries. In a side impact the air bomb
isn't supposed to go off but it did. She was close enough to the wheel that
the deploying bag abraded her cornea and the lye dust formed by the bag
propellant chemically burned them.
I'd rather have a loaded gun pointed to my face than to have an air bomb in my
steering wheel. I know from experience (Personally, a head-on collision with
a drunk plus experience in rescue.) that a properly worn seatbelt will provide
all the protection needed.
My recommendation is to find someone who knows how to disarm that weapon
before it hurts you.
<soapbox off>
John
---
John De Armond
johngdDO...@bellsouth.net
http://personal.bellsouth.net/~johngd
Cleveland, Occupied TN
HHamp5246
<johngdDO...@bellsouth.net> writes:
>I'd rather have a loaded gun pointed to my face than to have an air bomb in my
steering wheel. I know from experience (Personally, a head-on collision with a
drunk plus experience in rescue.) that a properly worn seatbelt will provide
all the protection needed.
>
>My recommendation is to find someone who knows how to disarm that weapon
before it hurts you.>
I disarmed the one on the passenger side..... too many dogs have been killed by
them for me to want one of my dogs in the line of fire.
It's quite simple to disarm.
The problem is for a year I had a light on the dash telling me to check the
airbag...... when the light burned out the ding ding started. When I start up
I get 15 dings... 3 series of five.
Then all is quiet until the spirit moves the dinger again... and 15 more dings.
I've gotten so I don't hear it, but passengers always want to know what it is.
I went to a Ford dealer to see about making the ding go away... the service
woman went crazy because I had disarmed it....... citing me government
regulations etc. I stared at her and left.... I was afraid she was going to
hook it back up or have me arrested. (c:
So, be aware, if you disarm your airbag you may have to live with the
consequences.
Hunter
Tom Marik
With pets and babies, it's a must to disable it. They were designed only for
adults with their seat belt on.
Tom
HHamp5246 wrote:
> ...I went to a Ford dealer to see about making the ding go away... the service
HHamp5246
>seat.
>With pets and babies, it's a must to disable it. They were designed only for
>adults with their seat belt on.
Yes, the ones that have the disable thing are the extended cabs... the crew
cabs like mine do not have the disable feature.
Hunter
Tom Marik
Tom
HHamp5246
>
I think the logic is they can face the baby car seats backwards in the full
crew cabs........... no room to do that in the extended cabs so baby rides in
the front seat.
Hunter
Neon John
bag. it almost always is yellow wire with a bright yellow warning sticker on
it. After removing the battery wire and waiting 30 mins for the internal
power storage cap to discharge, you unhook the airbomb connector and
substitute a suitable resistor across the connector. The proper value for the
various brands are on the net. Then short the pins of the connector going to
the airbomb to prevent static from firing it. The resistor keeps the computer
and everyone else happy while completely disabling the airbomb.
Unfortunately, because of the state of things these days, you'll probably have
to do this yourself. Seems everyone is running around scared shitless of
being sued if they unhook someone else's air bomb.
John
---
Guess Who?
did over $3600 worth of damage,to the grill, left front fender, and
hood, but didn't set off the air bag.
Another deer did over $5000 to a pal's Honda Civic - with no air bag
inflated! Both were head on strikes.
We were both glad they didn't go off. I've been told the inflation is
about like having a "cheery bomb" explode in the front seat when they
do!
I keep the passenger side bag turned off on my Nissan Frontier,
fearing death by fright, more than the wreck...
After reading Neon John's story about his aunt, I want my driver side
bag unplugged as well, but will wait, since I plan to by a new truck
soon..............
Don
Dan D
<madewa...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>Last week I hit a deer. He hit my driver's side front above the bumper
<<snip>>
>there was no need for the air bags, but I'm just wondering....
>
>--
>Peace, Love and Serenity,
>Madeleine
To answer your question, your car has sensors that measure how quickly
you decelerate and when you reach a certain threshold, your airbags
deploy. With all the damage that collision caused, it didn't slow
your car down quickly enough to trigger the bags.
As for Neon John, I'm an ER doc. Every day I see people after their
airbags deploy. I've seen one wrist broken on an elderly lady, one
fabric print on a cornea, and lots of scuffed forearms. Mostly I see
no injuries at all, as in nothing, nada, none. On the other hand,
people are much less banged up than when I started 20 years ago.
Overall, they do way more good than harm. It's all objective
risk-benefit analysis, and of course you're free to do as you please.
But when it's time for the old angioplasty, which is much riskier than
an airbag deploying, knowing that they can cause blockages and
ruptures of the coronary arteries, what'cha gonna do?
-Dan