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califb
New User
| Posts: 2
| Joined: 12/05
Posted: 12/22/05
11:07 PM
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My 18 year old daughter's 1997 Geo Prizm was involved in an accident earlier this evening (thankfully nobody was injured). The front end damage to the car is quite extensive but for some reason the air bag never deployed. (see pics of the car and damage here). I would think that a front end accident severe enough to cause that much damage it certainly should have deployed. Am I wrong about this or did the air bag fail? (there is no way for anyone to turn it off or disable it in this car). Thanks
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Posted: 12/23/05
08:01 AM
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If the air bags have been deployed in a prior accident without reprograming or replacement of the air bag module, then it wouldn't deploy. Also, if the vehicle has been flooded, then the air module may short out and crash. Here's a link for checking the air bag system:
http://www.airbags-oem.com/checks.html
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califb
New User
| Posts: 2
| Joined: 12/05
Posted: 12/23/05
10:34 AM
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 doratheexplorer wrote: If the air bags have been deployed in a prior accident without reprograming or replacement of the air bag module, then it wouldn't deploy. Also, if the vehicle has been flooded, then the air module may short out and crash. Here's a link for checking the air bag system: http://www.airbags-oem.com/checks.html
No, the bag had never been previously deployed or the vehicle flooded. I do appreciate the link to the air bag info and will check it. Thanks
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Johnswiftm
Enthusiast
| Posts: 658
| Joined: 07/05
Posted: 12/25/05
10:32 AM
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By looking at the pictures the airbags did the right thing by not deploying. They will only deploy if the front bumper support is pushed back int the car. It seems to be intact. You are probably lucky the airbags did not deploy.
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Posted: 12/27/05
10:05 AM
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Johnswiftm wrote: By looking at the pictures the airbags did the right thing by not deploying. They will only deploy if the front bumper support is pushed back int the car. It seems to be intact. You are probably lucky the airbags did not deploy.
Hypothesis: The force wasn't sufficient to trigger the air bag system (sensor detected a dead stop from 10 to 15 mph). It appears the energy of the impact was absorbed by the pliable body of the vehicle and not the ridged frame, which would have transferred much more energy to the passenger cabin and likely triggered the air bag system.
When the collision damage is repaired, have the air bag system checked for operability.
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/airbag.htm
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