We got crossed up on a hillside and while backing down (or sliding down actually) and when the frone end came swinging around I was wondering how much of a hit we could take without having the airbags go off!?!?!

Is there a way to disconnect them when you are wheeling? I was looking for a fuse that I could pull and could not locate anything.

Suggestions?

Thanks

 

Hard to say what kind of a hit will fire an airbag...all the conditions must be met to make an airbag go off. Could it go off when wheeling? sure. I would just leave it alone and not worrry about it, disabling an AirBag is a big liability (sp?) esp if you have passengers in the jeep with you and someone gets hurt.

 

I have seen airbags deploy in the smallest of impacts. Then again we had a Toyota Tacoma at work that was involed in a serious front end collision and the airbags did not deploy. The drivers side of the front bumper was touching the drivers side door and still no airbag. The ins company decided to do the repairs because it only had 9K miles on it. 6 months later the passenger side saw the same fate and still no airbags.

 

A big misconception with airbags is that they will go off in any front end collision. There has to be certain conditions that must be met before they will go off. The angle of the impact, speed, if there is someone in the passenger seat, etc. All of these are dependent on the vehicle involved. The speed to set off a Cherokee airbag will be different than a Prius.

For the most part, the vehicle has to be involved in a frontal impact at speeds around 15 or up for the inertia stitches to activate. Again this varies because of the vehicle weight or the force being transferred to the vehicle. It's the force of both cars combined that will activate the inertia switches. also, the airbags will not go off unless more than one switchs are activated. This prevents someone from say, hitting one switch with a hammer and setting them off by accident.

The angle of the impact plays a big role too. The airbags will inflate with so much force that they do injure passengers. But this injury is rarely more serious than the injury one would receive if there were no airbags. For the airbags to provide the most protection, the passenger must be directed into the airbag straight on, in the case of a frontal impact. If the impact is even a little to the side, the airbag will probably cause more injury to the passenger, so it won't be activated.

In the last ten years I've been involved in collision repair, I have never seen or even heard of the airbags going off unless someone tinkered with them. And by judging the condition of their wrecked cars, the people that did complain about them going off probably would be in the hospital for a week if it wasn't for the airbag. Bottom line is there is no need to deactivate them. Just make sure you don't drive gangster style, (one hand on the opposite side of the wheel) so if you do get in an accident, the airbags won't throw your hand into your face.

 

Great Info

 

It usually takes a full-frontal impact with a certain decelerative force from 35 MPH equivalent or greater for an airbag to activate. The bumper also has to be deflected in a certain manner at a certain velocity. There are other conditions that must be met, too.

It is illegal to tamper with or disable airbags.