Question about Airbags?

Question

If a car equipped with airbags is in an accident that definately should have sety off the airbags, but they don't deploy, how can I find out if it was a mistake of the car company or if somebody prior to use owning the car had them disabled? The car went over an embankment into a tree and is literally totalled, but not 1 airbag deployed.

the car never rolled over, it went nose first over

Answer 1

Did the vehicle leave the ground when it was going over the embankment? If it was airborne, the tires would not be turning and the speed would not be registering on the speedometer. This could make the airbag controller think the car was going slowly and not deploy the airbags!

The car could have hit the tree while at a downward angle, and the sensor not be tripped! There are several reasons that an airbag system will not deploy in a specific instance.

Without seeing the car and the damage, it is impossible to tell what happened!

Answer 2

Most airbags will go off only after it registers a accident equivalent to hitting a brick wall at about 20 mph (I've seen as high as 28mph). On newer cars that are equipped, it has to register the accident in the front and the rear sensor( normally located in the passenger compartment and set at a lower theshold) to go off (so hitting a piling at McDonalds doesn't blow the bag)

If the sensors in the front didn't sense a accident (or side sensors on cars made as such) the air bags won't deploy.. It's not made to go off in a roll over or if it hit the tree after the rolling slowed it down under the threshold.

The dealer can see if it sees anything disconnected (To disable them, they would find the switch in a obvious place)

But I've seen a few accidents where the accident was severe but didn't hit the sensors on the front with enough severity to set the air bags off.

Answer 3

A qualify mechanic can check out for you if it's been previously deployed and has not been reseted.