AIRBAGS ? had a crash and airbags didnt go off

[ratter]

I think some people are taking things out of context or believe things that are not quite true.

An air bag is used as a last resort to stop serious injury. Unlike america we are required by law to use seatbelts, because of that, the americans air bags will deploy a lot sooner than our cars. A lot of things that influence us are american based so that is possibly where some of the problem has come from.

An air bag is a violent thing when deployed and can cause it own list of injuries if deployed incorrectly or even seating position can have an affect.
A air bag is deployed basically by an explosion of gunpowder to inflate the bag, this gun power explosion can cause hearing problems (although the accident noise is most of the time louder) there can be burns associated with it deploying due to the hot gases and last of all the impact of the bag hitting the occupant can cause injurys.

The driver walking away from the accident shows that the functions of the cars safety items did their jobs. because the driver has no serious injurys, there is a good chance the air bags were not needed in this accident, which is what i think Aeron was leading to with his line of questioning regarding damage to the car. Only Ford engineers would probably be able to determine whether the air bags should have deployed, but we probably know what their answer would be.

Glad to hear you got out of the accident ok, sorry to hear about the damage

[Bossxr8]

Originally Posted by kyro_02

Doesn't mean it's not faulty..... it would be a different story if you break your neck of course. Car's can't magically sense whether or not you're going to get injured for it to deploy!

But Ford will have collected enough data from crash test dummies and from analysing medical reports from car crash victims to know the type of injuries sustained at various speeds. I know that Ford do get access to their cars that have been involved in fatalities and they do lots of real world analyse. Its not something they leave to simulated accidents in controlled conditions like crash tests.

The car can't know wether you'll be injured or not but it would get it right most of the time due to that sort of research.

[ltd]

Originally Posted by james22

^^^

3 if you include the speed sensor.
A) - Must be doing over 60kph,
B) - Sensor in front of car detects impact
C) - Sensor under seat, detects your "Flying movement". In other words, when you hit the rail and your car decelerated, your entire seat would have been thrown forward, hence the sensor under the seat.

When A, B, C are all met, airbag goes boom. And yes it ******* hurts, & to my surprise bloody burnt me too

Not quite.
The airbags only deploy using the airbag sensors, as no other method of deployment is both cheap enough nor reliable enough to warrant using anything other than airbag sensors.

Airbag sensors are what is referred to as a "ball in tube" accelerometer. What they are basically comprised of is a gold ball fit inside a tube which has a magnet on one end and 4 metal contacts on the other. This tube assembly is then encased within a resin filled metal housing. In normal driving conditions the ball is stuck firmly against magnet, and only moves when a collision of over 27-29km/h occurs into a solid object (ancap testing etc verify this).

The resultant impact then produces enough force to dislodge the ball from the magnet, and as it continues through the tube it comes to rest on the 4 metal contacts completing the circuit and thusly deploying the airbag. This all occurs in microseconds so the room for error is minimal.
The reason why there are 4 contacts? Just in case any of them fail.
If you look in front of your radiator you will see the external airbag sensor and you should also see an arrow indicating its mounting toward the front of the vehicle. Under the drivers seat there is also a similar sensor, and it is used as a backup in the rare occurrence of a failure of the primary sensor.

These sensors are very heavy duty, and very rarely fail. Think black box flight data recorders for their durability. Daily there are accidents which destroy the airbag sensor yet the airbags have still gone off; that's how fast the current is sent through the circuit before sufficient damage to break the sensor can be sustained.

Also, just a fun fact for the home handyman, don't ever remove bolts in your car which have a green painted head on them, they are earth connections for your airbags and removal can actually cause sufficient malfunction to deploy the bags. Most cars nowadays are in the thousands to remove and replace these items.

[ltd]

Oh, in relation to the original post I can assure that if the airbags did indeed fail to go off, then the accident was not at the required speed. An impact at 100km/h over 5 seconds will have the same force as an impact of say 20km/h over 1 second.

[gtfpv]

just a note about airbags . they themselves can cause fatalities . and are only deployed if the hit is deemed a fatal one, by the sensors . however they work , but if you had one go off in your face, unnecessarily. you could have injuries like . retina damage, deafness, broken nose, burns, lung damage, and neck injury. an impact would have to be bad to warrant an airbag to save your life .

i always wear glasses when driving just incase .

[Xitdxr]

Hey grnkpr, Not good to hear about the car, but as long as your alright thats the main thing.

I dont know if blkphoon told u about my accident in my EF XR8 (blkphoons old car) last October, but the airbag deployed in that when i went up the back of someone at around 60-70km/h. Also, it was a 98 Nissan Patrol that i collided with that had come to a complete hault. I have photo's somewhere.

But anyway, good to hear your ok.

Also, My airbag did nothing to me, stopped my head from hitting the steering wheel and thats about it. I didnt get burnt or anything like that. In fact, i didnt even have whiplash from my accident.

[wicksy]

i work with racq and what we find is that, ford and mitsubishi airbags go off easy and holden ones never go off,

[SpoolMan]

I seen a BA GT it hit a pole bang smack in front, it was a write off the engine hit the firewall.
Air bag didn't go off because the wiring that goes to the air back censor in the front off the car was some how ripped out in the collision before it had a chance to go off.

Good to see you ok phil..

[Yellow_Festiva]

2-3 weeks ago on whatever that Learner driver show is called one of the gals stalled it (or slowed down to an almost complete stop) just before parking, then revved it up, popped the clutch and within 6-8 metres raced into the park space, hit whatever was in front of the parking spot and both airbags blew.

If this managed to blow both bags than I would be asking questions about the system in your car.

Perhaps new cars have a lower thresh hold for letting em go, but the parking incident described above would be a shadow of what situation you and your car was in.

At least your ok I guess.

[smally289]

One thing to remember, if there is an electrical fault in the air bag circuit it will bring the dash warning light on as we all know. BUT, whenever the light is on the system is disabled and will not deploy no matter what you hit or what speed you are doing.

[ltd]

Originally Posted by smally351

One thing to remember, if there is an electrical fault in the air bag circuit it will bring the dash warning light on as we all know. BUT, whenever the light is on the system is disabled and will not deploy no matter what you hit or what speed you are doing.

Conversely, a fault in your system may actually deploy the airbags such as a loose earth, faulty sensor etc. I have seen several cases of faulty airbags going off in some commodores, where the airbag deployment has caused an accident by temporarily scaring the bejeesus out of the driver and causing them to react....... into another car.

Several recalls were done if I'm not mistaken.

[ltd]

Originally Posted by Yellow_Festiva

2-3 weeks ago on whatever that Learner driver show is called one of the gals stalled it (or slowed down to an almost complete stop) just before parking, then revved it up, popped the clutch and within 6-8 metres raced into the park space, hit whatever was in front of the parking spot and both airbags blew.

If this managed to blow both bags than I would be asking questions about the system in your car.

Perhaps new cars have a lower thresh hold for letting em go, but the parking incident described above would be a shadow of what situation you and your car was in.

At least your ok I guess.

Different rules for different cars.
What I mean is, the cars in that show were Hyundais, the car in question here is a ford. ADR specify that airbags in Australian made cars must deploy over a maximum 32km/h; but it does not specify a minimum. The hyundais used in this show are also on sale throughout the world, typically places like the USA where their design rules are different. Over there, I think from memory it is a maximum of 10mph or 16km/h. Cars designed for the world market would be making their cars to meet this standard.

[data_mine]

Originally Posted by ltd

Several recalls were done if I'm not mistaken.

The VZ I had at work, was recalled for a faulty earth for the side air bags. Recalled for numerous other things to. To be fair it was a October 04 VZ (first ones).

[ltd]

What about the VT in 1998? Didn't that also have a number of incidents where the airbag prematurely went off?

[data_mine]

Not sure. Only commo's I've personally dealt with were VN, VP, VX, VZ

Now at work we've got a BF. Everyone is much happier.

[smally289]

Originally Posted by ltd

Conversely, a fault in your system may actually deploy the airbags such as a loose earth, faulty sensor etc. I have seen several cases of faulty airbags going off in some commodores, where the airbag deployment has caused an accident by temporarily scaring the bejeesus out of the driver and causing them to react....... into another car.

Several recalls were done if I'm not mistaken.

That sort of fault in a Falcon would be detected by the airbag module which would then blow the fuse and render the system inactive. The dash light would also come on.

[Ultimate]

Airbags only go off when a certain amount gforces are reached when you hit something, then they will come off. I had a accident a while back from a kangaroo and i ended up in a bit drop off hitting a bank, they didnt go off either and that was a 03 ba falcon, road the car off as well.

Jeff

[smally289]

Thats right, and many would be surprised at the simplicity of the device the airbag system uses to determine the g forces.

[Ultimate]

LOL.

If moves 2 inches forward, release airbags?

If moves back 2 inches, explode?