Takata air bags

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MileHighMan
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Re: Takata air bags

Post by MileHighMan »

exhaustgases wrote:Since they are considered a danger, how come there isn't a recall to just disconnect or turn them off or remove them until there are replacements available?
Leaving them activated is like rolling the dice isn't it?

DO NOT DISSABLE THEM.....The news report I saw,,,I believe was only one out of about 160 air-bags tested deployed wrong....Make an appointment to have it replaced....Dan.
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Re: Takata air bags

Post by woody b »

exhaustgases wrote:From what I have seen air bags only work good on dead crash dummies with no neck muscles. =D>

I'm not an air bag fan. IMHO the problem with the takata air bags is two fold though. There's no way a dealer or manufacturer is going to disable, or recommend disabling a safety device. A few years ago Ford had a campaign to unplug a cruise control brake switch, that had caused fires on a few vehicles, until replacement switches were available. That just made the cruise control not work. If someone got injured in a wreck, after a manufacturer disabled a safety device the lawsuits would be astronomical.

The big problem is the time required to manufacture the replacement air bags. I read something like 5 years. During the Cobalt ignition switch fiasco we had a BUNCH of people in rental cars. I can't imagine a recall that takes 5 years to complete. If I had a vehicle with takata air bags I'd probably disable them.....but that's just me. I WILL NOT disable air bags for customers, under any circumstance. I work at a GM dealer. As far as I know the only GM vehicles with takata airbags are Pontiac Vibes. (made my Toyota). I'm curious to see how many of them we get. (We were never a Pontiac dealer) If I find out more from GM I'll post it here.
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Re: Takata air bags

Post by Kevin Johnson »

exhaustgases wrote:I tried to search for those famous car test drivers, like the guy with last name Julian? that would do the Volvo off the bridge crash test commercial.
I also remember an American guy that would do 50 plus mph into a solid wall, with only a crash helmet on, not even wearing seat belts let alone an air bag.
http://www.britishpathe.com/video/dared ... /car+crash Cuckoo !
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Re: Takata air bags

Post by Kevin Johnson »

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Re: Takata air bags

Post by Rizzle »

exhaustgases wrote:
Yeah right, not everyone buys a car to just park it. Why is the most logical thing about this air bag crap ignored? Just disconnect it! The whole reason for an airbag is for people that refuse to wear a seat belt. Most all the deaths from these bad bags are super low speed impacts.

And the brainless engineers designing these things have 2 choices, 1 no more high powered type dust in them, 2 a much thicker pressure vessel with a pop off valve for over pressure, its like engineering nowadays is a gathering of brainless know nothings.
Uh, no. The airbag is for people who ARE wearing the seatbelt. No seatbelt deactativates the airbag, since the results are worse than no airbag at all.
The failure is something like 2-3% of these bags, the rest deploy fine. They do not recommend disconnecting them last i saw.
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Re: Takata air bags

Post by Rizzle »

I was short on time for my previous post and didnt have time to verify whether most airbags require seatbelts to be activated. That seems to be incorrect. However, that doesnt change the fact that airbags work with seatbelts, and are not just there for drivers not wearing them. Airbags are also set not to go off below a certain deceleration, basically needing the equivalent of hitting a solid object at 14 mph or more.
See video for slow speed (below airbag deployment threshold) with and without seatbelt, plus high speed collision with airbag deployment and with/without seatbelt.
https://youtu.be/YLCWGcNpY94?t=1m13s
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Re: Takata air bags

Post by pdq67 »

Lets see.....

We used to drive vehicles with SCAREY mechanical drum brakes and then they went to hydraulic drum brakes because they worked better. Next was front PDB's because the drum brakes could fade if pushed to the limits several times.

We used to only have manual steering that was bear to parallel park, so they gave us Power Steering!!

We used to have stick and stick OD trannies so they went with autos! Stick trannies will self brake, but the stick OD ones would free wheel in OD if not mistaken. Same thing with auto trannies, they will free wheel unless you down shift, but even then they might still free wheel. This is where the PDBs come in handy, right??

Now after bumping my head in a panic stop or digging myself as a kid out of the foot well, I can see padded dashes and rounded instrument knobs as well as SEAT-BELTS, but that is about all..... Oh, a collapsible steering wheel column is a good idea here too....

Tire air pressure monitors because people that won't take care of themselves because they are too stupid to make sure their tires are pumped up right!!

Vehicles used to be made STRONG enough and with heavy enough spring steel bumpers that you could take out a telephone pole running 70 mph and only have to worry about the pole coming down on your roof and putting a big dent in it!

Nowadays, vehicles are made so flimsy that they engineer impact "CRUSH ZONES" instead of body strength protection. BUT boy the vehicles sure do get destroyed so then they sell more vehicles in the end!! Vehicle insurance goes up too!!!

As the cost of GOV. mandated SAFETY Reg's continue to grow and who pays the bill all because people don't want to be responsible for their own actions AND our GOV. feeds itself off of that!! As it continues to grow ever bigger, not producing any thing of value that can be sold at a profit to pay its own way!

Sorry, I'm ranting...........

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Re: Takata air bags

Post by Rizzle »

pdq67 wrote:Lets see.....

We used to drive vehicles with SCAREY mechanical drum brakes and then they went to hydraulic drum brakes because they worked better. Next was front PDB's because the drum brakes could fade if pushed to the limits several times.

We used to only have manual steering that was bear to parallel park, so they gave us Power Steering!!

We used to have stick and stick OD trannies so they went with autos! Stick trannies will self brake, but the stick OD ones would free wheel in OD if not mistaken. Same thing with auto trannies, they will free wheel unless you down shift, but even then they might still free wheel. This is where the PDBs come in handy, right??

Now after bumping my head in a panic stop or digging myself as a kid out of the foot well, I can see padded dashes and rounded instrument knobs as well as SEAT-BELTS, but that is about all..... Oh, a collapsible steering wheel column is a good idea here too....

Tire air pressure monitors because people that won't take care of themselves because they are too stupid to make sure their tires are pumped up right!!

Vehicles used to be made STRONG enough and with heavy enough spring steel bumpers that you could take out a telephone pole running 70 mph and only have to worry about the pole coming down on your roof and putting a big dent in it!

Nowadays, vehicles are made so flimsy that they engineer impact "CRUSH ZONES" instead of body strength protection. BUT boy the vehicles sure do get destroyed so then they sell more vehicles in the end!! Vehicle insurance goes up too!!!

As the cost of GOV. mandated SAFETY Reg's continue to grow and who pays the bill all because people don't want to be responsible for their own actions AND our GOV. feeds itself off of that!! As it continues to grow ever bigger, not producing any thing of value that can be sold at a profit to pay its own way!

Sorry, I'm ranting...........

pdq67
Ahh, old timers ignorance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPF4fBGNK0U

And yet, the belair is heavier.

Taking out the other object only works if its not something bigger than you. Oncoming suv, truck, transport, bridge pole, etc, they dont follow that idea.
Seatbelt might prevent you from ending up becoming one with the steering wheel, but the airbag prevents your head from pivoting into the nearby objects.

Crumple zones are areas fore and aft of the passenger compartment. Anything in the middle is built as strong as they can within reason.

But, like always, you're just going to keep spouting your ignorance without reading the counterpoints.
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Re: Takata air bags

Post by Brian P »

Even if your vehicle has Takata air bags, these probably save hundreds of lives in circumstances that otherwise would have been a fatality, for every fatality that otherwise would not have happened. The balance is STRONGLY in favour of leaving them in place and working.

Modern vehicles are vastly safer in a collision than anything from 20 or more years ago. Airbags are part of the reason why. Better crash structures are another part of the reason why. New vehicles have a very strong "cage" around the passenger compartment and designed-in crumple zones around them. This approach is FAR safer than the old built-like-a-tank approach - which often turns out to be not so strong in a real world collision.
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Re: Takata air bags

Post by Brian P »

The previous Impala-vs-Impala collision had a 50-model-year separation - it compared what is essentially a new car (but now 7 years old) to something that pre-dated almost ALL considerations for collision protection aside from "being big and heavy".

Here's a modern economy car (a plain ordinary Nissan Versa) against what is essentially a 20-year-old economy car (a Nissan Sentra of a few generations ago but without airbags - still built in Mexico for their local market but it's being discontinued due to changes in Mexican safety regulations).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85OysZ_4lp0

The airbags are part of the puzzle ... but compare the enormous deformation of the passenger compartment of the Nissan Tsuru (Sentra) to that of the Versa, which remains largely intact. The driver of the Tsuru/Sentra wouldn't have survived even if the car had airbags - because the passenger compartment was demolished with the driver inside.

"Being big" is not sufficient. I bring you the 2001 Ford F150 extended cab offset-frontal collision ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Wb66PzljP8

For comparison, a 2005 VW Jetta ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYmSmZpPxQw

Note that the Jetta's windshield didn't even break. I betcha you could have yanked the driver's door open - it might not close nicely afterward, but who cares.

I'll take the Jetta, thank you very much.
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Re: Takata air bags

Post by Rizzle »

Brian P wrote:The previous Impala-vs-Impala collision had a 50-model-year separation - it compared what is essentially a new car (but now 7 years old) to something that pre-dated almost ALL considerations for collision protection aside from "being big and heavy".

Here's a modern economy car (a plain ordinary Nissan Versa) against what is essentially a 20-year-old economy car (a Nissan Sentra of a few generations ago but without airbags - still built in Mexico for their local market but it's being discontinued due to changes in Mexican safety regulations).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85OysZ_4lp0
A Chinese market chinese truck has a 'great' crumple zone :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7-fUxvQ8rA
Brian P wrote: "Being big" is not sufficient. I bring you the 2001 Ford F150 extended cab offset-frontal collision ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Wb66PzljP8

For comparison, a 2005 VW Jetta ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYmSmZpPxQw

Note that the Jetta's windshield didn't even break. I betcha you could have yanked the driver's door open - it might not close nicely afterward, but who cares.

I'll take the Jetta, thank you very much.
The difference there is the they are both against the same immoveable object. Pit the truck against the car, and the truck fairs much better in comparison. Its occupants also see far lower neg accelerations.

The low offset test is fairly new afaik, and many manufacturers are still updating the lineups to perform well in that test. Upper door separation and occupant missing the airbag seem to be common issues in older vehicles placed in that test.

I haven't seen the van trailer underride tests till just now. [about 1/2way] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8b9tFZS5v4
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Re: Takata air bags

Post by Brian P »

exhaustgases wrote:All airbags do is protect from initial deceleration, and keeping heads or faces from hitting something.
But that goes a long way to making a collision survivable instead of not. A concentrated blunt-force impact to the head (e.g. from an unprotected steering wheel rim) could be a fatal injury, but the same overall deceleration loading spread out over a much greater area (the contact area with the airbag) and over a greater distance (the distance that the airbag compresses - as opposed to a sudden whack to the head) has a much greater chance of survival.
exhaustgases wrote: They do not stop a crushing injury, they have blinded people, they have disfigured people, they have killed people. They are not fool proof, and I would agree that they could be nice if the stupid inflator was properly designed. They need to be made much stronger, and have an over pressure safety that is not directed at the driver or passengers. There is a lot of good info on the net about how dangerous they are even when the inflator doesn't shrapnel into your face.
Yes, and with respect to the crushing injuries, this is why newer vehicle bodyshells are getting much stronger, essentially forming a cage around the passenger compartment but without the exposed tubes seen in race-car cages.

Airbags also won't stop people from being ejected from the vehicle through a window opening after the window breaks, nor will they stop people from bouncing around the inside of a vehicle in a multiple-impact situation or in a roll-over (with the risk of being ejected in the process) ... which is why one should still wear one's seat belts! Being ejected from a vehicle in the midst of a collision is seldom a good thing ... often it's followed by the person being run over or crushed.
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Re: Takata air bags

Post by Dodge Freak »

IMO the number one reason we got air bags, is to prevent the vehicle to be used as a weapon over and over again. With air bag cars, the first hard impact blows the drivers hands off the steering wheel and the vehicle stops--every single time.

No more ramming closed gates at speed and keep on going. No more knocking cars out of the way, nope the good old air bag put an end to that nonsense.

If air bags really worked so great, how come big name racing bodies won't use them. Nascar, etc ? Only place there is air bags is were the law requires it, nobody else wants it.

As for those old cars from the 60's and 70's, they WERE SAFER in many types of crashes. Sure these newer cars, steer and stop way better but in a crash, you had more of a chance in the old "tanks" or "battleships" as the cops called their cruisers.

Why back in the 70's we knew this cop who always wore a helmet while driving his cop car. He did not believe in using his seat belt, just his helmet. If anybody laughed at him, he would start bragging about having wrecking- totaling 9 cops cars--so far and being back on the road again in no more then a few weeks time. He would joke that the next crash would kill him cause he used up all of his 9 lives.

Then came the 80's and plastic covers that hid the little steel bumpers the cars now had but hey the air bags were going to save us..now its self driving cars, those are now going to save us
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Re: Takata air bags

Post by Brian P »

Racing cars have a totally different safety system in place with different objectives. Racing cars have a 5-point harness to keep the driver locked into the seat, and a Hans device to keep the neck from deforming too far (this is a recent development), and a very strong cage around the driver to keep the driver compartment from being deformed, and the driver wears a helmet as protection from head injuries. While this is a very good and effective strategy and it is why NASCAR and other racing organizations use it ... It is not practical for road cars. Most people can't be bothered to strap on a helmet every time they drive, and there is enough trouble getting people to just do up a normal lap and shoulder belt with one buckle. And that cage is pretty intrusive against getting in and out of the car - nevermind what passengers are supposed to do.

That cop was not wrong about wearing a helmet, particularly in the cars of that era ... but most people aren't going to do that ...

The 5-point-harness + helmet + Hans + cage approach does provide protection against repeated impacts, which the seat belt + pretensioner + airbag + crumple zone strategy does not. But in real world collisions, it is far more likely for a NASCAR travelling 180 mph to have a multiple-impact scenario than it is for a normal car in normal traffic to have a multiple-impact scenario. The modern "smart" airbags that only fire off when they have to, are intended to protect against real world scenarios where you have a minor impact (car glances off something ...) followed by a big one (... into a tree).

If you are actually concerned about whether your car is capable of ramming through a gate or pushing something out of the way (I'm not!), I would actually suggest that in a modern vehicle with smart airbags IF you are wearing your seat belts, an impact with a closed gate is unlikely to cause the airbags to fire, and if the impact with the gate was severe enough to fire the airbags, you weren't gonna get through that gate anyhow.

I can think of no realistic collision scenario where I'd rather be in a 1972 Impala than in a 2016 Impala.

Here is a chart to ponder: http://images.thetruthaboutcars.com/201 ... aveled.jpg

Seat belts started showing up in the 1960s and air bags started showing up in the 1980s in meaningful numbers and became mandatory somewhere near 1990. Bear in mind that the average vehicle on the roads is something like 11 years old, so it takes a while for improvements to show up in a chart like this.

Has traffic gotten better? No, it has gotten worse.
Have drivers gotten better? Not around here, they haven't.
Cell phones were invented. Bad.
Smart phones were invented with texting and emailing possible. Bad, bad, bad.
Have roads gotten better? In many cases, yes. But with more people using them, more transport trucks, more people yapping on the phone.
We have ABS, we have stability control. No question this has helped. But this didn't really become mainstream until towards the end of that graph.
But a lot of this ... is purely down to vehicles being more crashworthy now than they were in the past.
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Re: Takata air bags

Post by midnightbluS10 »

New cars are much safer than old "built like a tank" cars.

Take the following video as an example. They wreck a Smart car at SEVENTY MILES PER HOUR. The door still opens and closes normally....after hitting an object at 70mph. I'd take my chances in the smart car before I hit a wall at 70 in anything made before the late 90's-2000's


https://youtu.be/9iKGfo1wmOM
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