A question about : Air bags not deployed after hard impact
Hi All,
Last week I was involved in a car accident. To cut a long story short I was filtering right on a green light, and the car on the opposite side went straight through on a red light causing a 3 car collision.
My car is an Audi Q5, and took a big impact to the front and side. The car was not drivable after the impact and has to be towed to the nearest garage.
My airbags did not deploy, but the airbags in the other 2 cars did.
The technicians at the body work shop did a report yesterday.
In the technicians report he told me that the airbag sensor/wire for the driver & passenger had snapped, and this should cause the airbags to be released (which they didn't). He also noted that the dashboard electronics did not show a warning light saying airbags have been deployed - this should be instant.
Luckily no one was injured in this accident. My car is 5 years old from new, and have very low mileage. My car was in for a major service at Audi last Feb, and has a MOT from Nov.
My question is, I feel like I should complain to Audi, as if I was travelling faster i.e 20-30 mph the airbags could have been a life saver for me. So far I haven't done anything. I have asked the body work shop technician to put something in writing for me to take to Audi but he won't.
Surely when a car undergoes a major service the airbags are tested like it is with seatbelts?
If I want to write a letter of complaint do I address it to my local dealer or Audi head office?
I feel very strongly about this and want to complain, but I don't want it to effect the on-going repairs to my vehicle or my insurance.
Any help in how to deal with this matter would be greatly appreciated.
Best answers:
- Depends on the speed of the accident possibly?
I found this, although it is American in origin.
---Speed Threshold
Most airbags are designed to deploy at a certain speed. Accidents that don't trip the sensor will not cause the airbags to deploy. There are cases where airbag deployment during a low speed accident has hurt the driver more than the actual accident. Most airbags are designed to have a threshold barrier of 14 mph, above which they will deploy. There is also a lower limit of 8 mph, below which the airbag will not deploy. These specifications change from model to model, so read the owner's manual completely.
Accident Direction
The actual direction of the accident also makes a difference. For example, your front airbags should not deploy on side impacts or rollovers. This is because side airbags, curtain airbags and rollover airbags have to deploy to deal with the side to side deceleration.
There are more reasons why your airbags may not deploy after accidents. Take a closer look at the driver's manual for more information on your particular car model.
--
Personally, and i'm happy to be corrected if i am wrong, I doubt Airbag "tests" are run during an MOT.
That would be anything above and beyond making sure the airbag warning light isn't disabled and/or already "on" and faulty.
As to servicing i suspect at most they run a diagnostic check and look for reported errors generally from the on-board computers.
If it doesn't give any errors i doubt they go any further along the line of multimeter checks, etc.
I would assume if the technician is 100% confident the bags should have deployed, and that's what it says in the manual he should be bringing that to audis attention (i assume this was an audi garage / specialist?).
Edit: I also assume that more has to occur than a "snapped wire" for an airbag to engage as it could end up going off on an otherwise perfectly ok car and cause a serious accident itself?
I know when my airbag connector block was knocked loose (under a saxo passenger seat) the airbag did not deploy. It did put on a warning light though. - How would they test an airbag at a service?
- Watch this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQS-7heF-og
Cars are designed to absorb impacts at low speeds, air bags in modern cars are only triggered in higher impact collisions
In the above video the air bags go off in the old Espace but in the new one they don't - a head on crash with both cars travelling at 30mph - While Audi appear to have some issues with their airbags, this doesn't seem to be one of them. You were in a collision, you were wearing your seatbelt, the crumple zones crumpled and you got out unhurt. What benefit, apart from a face full of talc and arm burns, were you hoping for?
- where you travelling at a speed where sudden stoppage would cause you to fly forwards? or even smash your face into the steering wheel? Then why should airbag deploy?
- I totaled a ford mondeo ripping all the front offside wing and wheel off but as it was a glancing blow no airbags were deployed
your car will be packed with sensors that will monitor the car during an accident and if there was no danger to the occupants in the passenger cabin what was the point of deploying an airbag, were you or any of your passengers in any danger of hitting the steering wheel or the dash
if not no need to deploy airbags as the seat belts did there job - The airbag ECU performs self-tests all the time. If it doesn't see that everything's OK, it flags up a fault code and puts the warning light on. They've tested the ECU and found it testing OK, with no fault codes logged.
Quite simply, the ECU didn't think it worth firing the airbags.
Even though the airbags didn't fire, you weren't injured. The ECU was right. The airbags may actually have caused injury, and would certainly have increased the repair cost - perhaps even tipped a borderline repair into write-off territory.
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