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vehicle airbag detonation, only via an electric signal???

B

buickanddeere

Well-known Member
Here is the question." Are vehicle airbags only remotely set off via an electric signal from the two impact sensors agreeing on abrupt deaceleration."
I've had a local mechanic tell me that in some circustances. The airbag also has detectors inside and can set it's self off in some crashes?
 
There are typicaly 3 inertia sensors. two must activate to deploy the bags. Old inertia sensors worked totaly different. Vehicle must have sudden deceleration to deploy.
 
I remember an occasional report of an airbag deploying by itself, apparently a malfunction of some kind, without any collision, mechanical or road shock and not with anyone fiddling with wiring or such.
Old systems??? Aging, malfunctioning sensors???
 
I know Ford had a problem on the early ones. Would go off for no reason. My brother had one do it. His wife was cleaning the car. Bag went off and threw her into the back seat. Cracked her ribs and had a fractured neck.
 
Ford had a "program" on air bags around 1990.

When I was a Ford Service Manager in 1990, Ford sent out Urgent notices to all Crown Vic owners to go to their dealer and have their air bag checked. (Cars had only one, back then). Any Crown Vic that came in the door, we had to disarm the air bag, remove it from the steering wheel, and compare the serial number to a list from Ford. If the serial number matched, we had to park the car and give the owner a rental at Ford's expense while we ordered a new bag.
 
I think its sodium azote in the air bag as a charge. It takes energy to ignite it. Normally comes from the air bag computer and wiring harness. Could come from a short or static discharge. Not sure it is impact sensitive like other explosives.
 
MOST cars with airbags use a electronic controller with three sensors that close in a collision and deploy the air bag. There are exceptions. Jeep used a self contained unit in Cherokees for a few years, but I am not sure exactly what years. I ran into a few when I was working at a Chrysler dealership. Also some euro cars use nitrogen cannisters for side curtain airbags. I am told that emergency personnel have to use lots of care when cutting some cars in an accident. I have worked on lots of airbag systems and I have never had a problem.
 
Sodium Azote? Is that the stuff in the air bag that turns you white when it does its thing? A couple of years ago, a fella that I worked with came into the shop all white like someone threw a handful of white powder all over him. He was cussing, so naturally I asked what happened. He was at an intersection and the car in front of him eased or coasted backwards on a hill into his front end while the driver had the clutch in and let off the brake. When he got nudged or banged into...POW, out came his airbag, beating him up and coating him with white powder and making him a madder person then he already was.

Mark
 
ALL vehicles have a module that makes the decision based on sensor input to deploy the air bag(s). Static electricity can do it. Next time you have an airbag connector disconnected, look into the 2 halves. The bag side of the connector will have a shorting bar that shorts the 2 terminals together when disconnected. The shorting bar also helps protect someone from trying to put an ohm meter across the bag and deploying it.
 
To the best of my knowledge, it does take some kind of electrical current to set one off.. I'm no expert, but is what I was always told.

A few years back my sister totalled out her chevy cavalier.. No airbag deployment. We pulled the bags and they were hanging around until a kid on the weird side I know set one up with something on top of it.. hooked one wire to positive of battery, other wire to negative.. and POOF!! I want to say it was a tire/rim, and it shot it about 15 feet in the air.. Was a dumb thing to do, but sure glad that we used a cord that put us a long ways away from the bag.
 
We used to blow them in the plant with 12 volt batt. Don't know what the minimum current for activation would be. Never saw one self activate. These were out of cars. Around 1995 or so. Dave
 
We used to blow them in the plant with 12 volt batt. Don't know what the minimum current for activation would be. Never saw one self activate. These were out of cars. Around 1995 or so. Dave
 
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