Drivers airbag didn't deploy but passengers did

[Imzadi]

Sorry but... "only" 20mph??? No, that is fast enough to be a pretty sizeable impact, as evidenced by the fact that an airbag deployed. You absolutely don't go 20mph in bumper-to-bumper traffic. That doesn't really make sense.

Come to NYC. We have bumper to bumper traffic every day, twice a day, stretching for miles. There are times where one simply c.r.a.w.l.s. for miles. Then suddenly traffic starts moving and you think, "FINALLY! We're moving!" Only to move exactly 2 miles at 20 mph. It's still bumper to bumper traffic. If a couple cars ahead, the guy doesn't realize that traffic has come to a halt again, then he stops short, causing the guy behind him to stop short. The third person in line, which may have been the OP's DD, and wasn't looking 2 cars ahead, then she ends up suddenly having to stop short also. Only in this case, she didn't make it. Wham!

It can also happen in L.A. on the 405 Freeway. The interchange where the 405 & the 10 Freeway meet has been studied & documented as one of the worst interchanges in the U.S. Crawling, stopping/idling, suddenly speeding, only to stop again, then inch forward again, speeding for a half mile, stopping again, rinse & repeat for 5 miles. And it happens day AND night. I've been on the 405 at 2am and there's still this stop & crawl traffic as people are driving up from Anaheim & San Diego to L.A. and north or west.

 

[runwad]

So get this, my towns branch of AAA has a cockamanie rule that they cannot pick up a car from a location that they dropped it off. After the accident I had it towed to a mechanic, because I didn't know??? So when the mechanic said you need a body shop, I had to wait till the next day to call one since it was after hours. Got it all scheduled to have the car towed to the Body shop today and AAA was going to charge me for the pick up because of that rule.

So I drove it home since I'm only a couple miles away from the mechanic. The mechanic said it's not leaking, he wasn't sure if it would overheat so if it did just pull over and call AAA from where ever I was. Well no problems at all driving it home it seemed so normal.

I then called AAA from home and they came and picked up to take to Body Shop. I snapped a picture in case it can't be fixed and has to be scrapped, which is so hard to fathom since it hardly seems wrecked!

This was my MIL's car and she passed away 3 years ago from Alzheimer's. She loved that car and my DD is so upset about this. I really hope and pray it is structurally sound and can be fixed reasonably. One bit of good news is the mechanic said he didn't think the dash was cracked, which the body shop guy told me would drive up the cost of repairs if it had to be replaced. So fingers crossed.

 

[Imzadi]

So get this, my towns branch of AAA has a cockamanie rule that they cannot pick up a car from a location that they dropped it off. After the accident I had it towed to a mechanic, because I didn't know??? So when the mechanic said you need a body shop, I had to wait till the next day to call one since it was after hours. Got it all scheduled to have the car towed to the Body shop today and AAA was going to charge me for the pick up because of that rule.

So I drove it home since I'm only a couple miles away from the mechanic. The mechanic said it's not leaking, he wasn't sure if it would overheat so if it did just pull over and call AAA from where ever I was. Well no problems at all driving it home it seemed so normal.

I then called AAA from home and they came and picked up to take to Body Shop. I snapped a picture in case it can't be fixed and has to be scrapped, which is so hard to fathom since it hardly seems wrecked!

This was my MIL's car and she passed away 3 years ago from Alzheimer's. She loved that car and my DD is so upset about this. I really hope and pray it is structurally sound and can be fixed reasonably. One bit of good news is the mechanic said he didn't think the dash was cracked, which the body shop guy told me would drive up the cost of repairs if it had to be replaced. So fingers crossed.

Hmm, hopefully it is all cosmetic stuff and no real structural, safety parts that have to be changed. As Klayfish said, you not NEED the cosmetic stuff fixed unless you want it done for aesthetic reasons. Maybe the body shop can un-bend the hood a bit, or only change that out with a used one, along with whatever is needed to replace the airbag? The fender I'd leave.

 

[tvguy]

Sigh...

Your comment was "if there isn't someone weighing at least 65 pounds in the passengers seat, the airbag on that side won't deploy no matter how bad the crash". That is absolutely and completely false. Even in what you quoted, it never says anything about 65 lbs. Deployment is based on complicated algorithms that take a huge number of factors into account...weight, distribution of that weight, vehicle speed, seat belt usage, yaw, roll over, on and on... It will vary from car to car, as there are somewhat different systems, but the idea is the same. A passenger airbag can and without a doubt will deploy without at least 65lbs in it. I literally see it daily. I've seen bags deploy when you would never expect and vice versa. It's all about what the computer thinks is best for the occupants.

I don't need to look it up, it's my career. Heck, just a few months ago I flew across the country to take a multi day course on crash data retrieval, which of course ties to the airbags (though not required). Fascinating stuff. It's not a magic number of 65lbs...

Let's help the OP:
In your expert opinion, why would an airbag on the unoccupied passenger side deploy and not on the occupied driver side?

 

[DisneylandDarling]

Just look it up. 100% correct on newer cars.
http://www.holidayautomotive.com/blog/why-is-my-passenger-airbag-off-light-turned-on/
https://www.yourmechanic.com/question/what-does-the-passenger-air-bag-off-light-mean
https://www.cargurus.com/Cars/Discussion-t29190_ds538134

Sigh...

Your comment was "if there isn't someone weighing at least 65 pounds in the passengers seat, the airbag on that side won't deploy no matter how bad the crash". That is absolutely and completely false. Even in what you quoted, it never says anything about 65 lbs. Deployment is based on complicated algorithms that take a huge number of factors into account...weight, distribution of that weight, vehicle speed, seat belt usage, yaw, roll over, on and on... It will vary from car to car, as there are somewhat different systems, but the idea is the same. A passenger airbag can and without a doubt will deploy without at least 65lbs in it. I literally see it daily. I've seen bags deploy when you would never expect and vice versa. It's all about what the computer thinks is best for the occupants.

I don't need to look it up, it's my career. Heck, just a few months ago I flew across the country to take a multi day course on crash data retrieval, which of course ties to the airbags (though not required). Fascinating stuff. It's not a magic number of 65lbs...

To be fair, I've heard the same thing that air bags on the passenger side turn off below 65 pounds.

In fact, my friend was even saying this last year to me. Something about her daughter not being able to ride in the front due to her being under 65 pounds and the air bags not going off just in the event of an accident. She either read that in her manual or had the guy at the dealership tell her that. Since you say it's incorrect, Nissan probably didn't put it in the manual and it must have been an misinformed salesman at the dealership who told her that. I'm curious though why everyone thinks/hears the same exact weight.

 

[DisneylandDarling]

Sigh...

Your comment was "if there isn't someone weighing at least 65 pounds in the passengers seat, the airbag on that side won't deploy no matter how bad the crash". That is absolutely and completely false. Even in what you quoted, it never says anything about 65 lbs. Deployment is based on complicated algorithms that take a huge number of factors into account...weight, distribution of that weight, vehicle speed, seat belt usage, yaw, roll over, on and on... It will vary from car to car, as there are somewhat different systems, but the idea is the same. A passenger airbag can and without a doubt will deploy without at least 65lbs in it. I literally see it daily. I've seen bags deploy when you would never expect and vice versa. It's all about what the computer thinks is best for the occupants.

I don't need to look it up, it's my career. Heck, just a few months ago I flew across the country to take a multi day course on crash data retrieval, which of course ties to the airbags (though not required). Fascinating stuff. It's not a magic number of 65lbs...

Just out of curiosity, I tried to find her car's manual online. I couldn't, but found another one with the note: "To reduce the chance of airbag caused injuries, the system shuts off the passenger's front airbag when the total weight on the front passenger's seat is about 65 pounds (30 kg) or less. If no one is riding in the front passenger's seat, the airbag will be automatically shut off."


So maybe it isn't completely false what @tvguy said?

 

[tvguy]

To be fair, I've heard the same thing that air bags on the passenger side turn off below 65 pounds.

In fact, my friend was even saying this last year to me. Something about her daughter not being able to ride in the front due to her being under 65 pounds and the air bags not going off just in the event of an accident. She either read that in her manual or had the guy at the dealership tell her that. Since you say it's incorrect, Nissan probably didn't put it in the manual and it must have been an misinformed salesman at the dealership who told her that. I'm curious though why everyone thinks/hears the same exact weight.

If you scroll down to page 25 of this link from the National Child Safety Passenger Board post using a Honda owners manual as an example, "about 65 pounds" is listed as the weight that the passenger side airbag will be turned on.
http://cpsboard.org/cps/wp-content/...anuals-Passenger-Air-Bag-Automatic-On-Off.pdf

 

[Klayfish]

Let's help the OP:
In your expert opinion, why would an airbag on the unoccupied passenger side deploy and not on the occupied driver side?

That's a question that only the cars' computer can answer for sure. Highly unlikely it was any kind of "defect", as OP would have had an SRS fault light on the dash (though given it's a VW, that could have been broken too...LOL). My guess from experience is that it felt that the driver didn't need it, but also sensed that the passenger seatbelt was unbuckled. I'd say that was the key to deployment, an unbuckled belt. If it doesn't have a weight sensor in it (which is possible, I'd have to dig into my database to look) or the algorithm said "Anything under xxlbs in the seat (including zero), deploy the bag", then it would have gone off. I've seen this scenario countless times...bag deployment without a passenger in the seat. And in those cases, we never know exactly why. It's based on data we don't have access to, so we can only guess. If we really want, we can pull data from the airbag control module (ACM), but even that won't say why the bag deployed. It'll only tell me how fast someone was going, if the belt was buckled, steering wheel angle, gas pedal and brake position, yaw, etc...

If you want to insist that for all new cars, the bag won't deploy unless there is 65lbs in the seat, have at it. Don't know what else to tell you except that it's not correct. There may be a federal recommendation to not put kids under 65lbs in the front seat or something like that... I'm not 100% sure of that (it's not something I really need to know for my job). But airbags are far more complex than simply going by one weight number.

OP, they're going to need to open the hood to really see how bad it is. Radiator isn't leaking, which is good. I suspect the radiator support is bent, which is what holds the radiator in. Radiator is probably bent too, even if it's not leaking. Hopefully it's minor enough they can just pull it out and send you on your way. Won't be fully repaired, but enough to be usable. The hood really isn't "repairable" in that it would take more work to make it truly straight than to just replace it. But maybe they'd agree to just bang it out a bit to make it look a bit better.

 

[Klayfish]

I'll add this scenario in. Some knucklehead has their 60lb child in the front seat, unbelted. They're going 50mph and the driver doesn't realize traffic up ahead stopped. I'd be willing to bet the bag will deploy. The child will stand a better chance of survival by hitting the bag than by hitting the windshield/dashboard. The computer will make that decision, but my guess is it would say "deploy".

 

[Lilacs4Me]

Sorry but... "only" 20mph??? No, that is fast enough to be a pretty sizeable impact, as evidenced by the fact that an airbag deployed. You absolutely don't go 20mph in bumper-to-bumper traffic. That doesn't really make sense.

I'm pretty sure I got up to 20 mph in bumper-to-bumper traffic yesterday at certain points in my Chicago Suburbs commute....and my DH, who was in an accident 2 years ago in "bumper to bumper" traffic right by O'hare airport, was hit by a lady who merged out of their bumper to bumper lane and into the off-ramp right in front of a guy going 40-ish....and ricocheted right into my DH who was pretty much at a standstill, nearly totaling our car ($11K worth of damage, car was worth about $13K)

So *absolutely* isn't really accurate....curious as to what your point is, anyway? Are you saying the OP's daughter is lying?

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Yes, the "book price" & "insurance" standards may say the car is totaled. But, OP, as you've said, you know the history and the condition of the car otherwise, that those standards don't take in on a practical level. Their norms are of cars that are normally used a lot. Not pristine cars.

You could end up buying a newer $5K car, that breaks down more often later on, because of how the previous owner didn't take care of it. Hopefully, your body shop guy can fix your car back up and it still has a lot of life to it.

Cars get totaled out due to hail damage all the time. Mechanically fine to drive but too costly to replace parts and repair what dents you can without replacement.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

So get this, my towns branch of AAA has a cockamanie rule that they cannot pick up a car from a location that they dropped it off. After the accident I had it towed to a mechanic, because I didn't know??? So when the mechanic said you need a body shop, I had to wait till the next day to call one since it was after hours. Got it all scheduled to have the car towed to the Body shop today and AAA was going to charge me for the pick up because of that rule.

So I drove it home since I'm only a couple miles away from the mechanic. The mechanic said it's not leaking, he wasn't sure if it would overheat so if it did just pull over and call AAA from where ever I was. Well no problems at all driving it home it seemed so normal.

I then called AAA from home and they came and picked up to take to Body Shop. I snapped a picture in case it can't be fixed and has to be scrapped, which is so hard to fathom since it hardly seems wrecked!

This was my MIL's car and she passed away 3 years ago from Alzheimer's. She loved that car and my DD is so upset about this. I really hope and pray it is structurally sound and can be fixed reasonably. One bit of good news is the mechanic said he didn't think the dash was cracked, which the body shop guy told me would drive up the cost of repairs if it had to be replaced. So fingers crossed.

I know in my area they have mechanic shops that are AAA approved. Is that the same in your area?

As far as charging you for the tow what level of AAA do you have? I upgraded mine to the mid-level after paying something like $33 for a tow twice as where I needed to tow it to was over the 3 miles provided in the basic membership. I'm not aware of the rule you spoke of TBH I just wondered if it was dependent on your level of membership.

 

[DisneylandDarling]

I'll add this scenario in. Some knucklehead has their 60lb child in the front seat, unbelted. They're going 50mph and the driver doesn't realize traffic up ahead stopped. I'd be willing to bet the bag will deploy. The child will stand a better chance of survival by hitting the bag than by hitting the windshield/dashboard. The computer will make that decision, but my guess is it would say "deploy".

So even if the airbag says it is turned off, it will still deploy? Why do they even add that in to the manual? Not trying to argue/contradict, just curious

 

[wenrob]

That's a question that only the cars' computer can answer for sure. Highly unlikely it was any kind of "defect", as OP would have had an SRS fault light on the dash (though given it's a VW, that could have been broken too...LOL). My guess from experience is that it felt that the driver didn't need it, but also sensed that the passenger seatbelt was unbuckled. I'd say that was the key to deployment, an unbuckled belt. If it doesn't have a weight sensor in it (which is possible, I'd have to dig into my database to look) or the algorithm said "Anything under xxlbs in the seat (including zero), deploy the bag", then it would have gone off. I've seen this scenario countless times...bag deployment without a passenger in the seat. And in those cases, we never know exactly why. It's based on data we don't have access to, so we can only guess. If we really want, we can pull data from the airbag control module (ACM), but even that won't say why the bag deployed. It'll only tell me how fast someone was going, if the belt was buckled, steering wheel angle, gas pedal and brake position, yaw, etc...

If you want to insist that for all new cars, the bag won't deploy unless there is 65lbs in the seat, have at it. Don't know what else to tell you except that it's not correct. There may be a federal recommendation to not put kids under 65lbs in the front seat or something like that... I'm not 100% sure of that (it's not something I really need to know for my job). But airbags are far more complex than simply going by one weight number.

OP, they're going to need to open the hood to really see how bad it is. Radiator isn't leaking, which is good. I suspect the radiator support is bent, which is what holds the radiator in. Radiator is probably bent too, even if it's not leaking. Hopefully it's minor enough they can just pull it out and send you on your way. Won't be fully repaired, but enough to be usable. The hood really isn't "repairable" in that it would take more work to make it truly straight than to just replace it. But maybe they'd agree to just bang it out a bit to make it look a bit better.

I won’t insist that it won’t happen but car manufacturers and dealerships sure make you *think* it won’t. I’m actually glad that you came in and are educating us on this. My 2005 Tahoe has the sensor and while I’ve never done it, you are led to believe that if you needed to put a small child up front it would be okay because they wouldn’t trigger the sensor. When we bought DH’s truck I asked about the airbags, explaining my kids are quite small for their age and he assured me it wouldn’t go off. Thank you for letting us know they can.

OP my DD was in a similar accident (like what Imzadi described) but the airbags did not deploy. It cost thousands to repair. Fortunately we were covered. In your case I’d prepare myself to possibly having to give the vehicle up. I’m sorry this happened but glad your DD is okay.

 

[runwad]

I know in my area they have mechanic shops that are AAA approved. Is that the same in your area?

As far as charging you for the tow what level of AAA do you have? I upgraded mine to the mid-level after paying something like $33 for a tow twice as where I needed to tow it to was over the 3 miles provided in the basic membership. I'm not aware of the rule you spoke of TBH I just wondered if it was dependent on your level of membership.

We have PLUS!! And have been plus members for over 25 years!! 4 of us in our family have cards and we each get 4 calls a year and I think can get tows up to 100 miles.

Our membership is based out of the City we USED to live in when we got married, but it's like 20 minutes away from where we live now. When I renewed I never changed my membership over to the town I now live and boy am I glad! Not only is the membership rate more expensive they have wackier rules!

DH and I went there today to get our pics taken for passport renewals. When we got the pics 10 years ago they were free, now there is a 8.95 charge, I was like well ok whatever. Then they looked at my card and said oh your membership is with X city they do give free passport pics for Plus members, but you have to go to one of their offices. Fine it's across from my work no worries.

I'm none to happy with my towns branch of AAA. When we asked why different benefits they said because AAA's are like franchises and they can all have different benefits, rates, etc. Well what do you know, learn something new every day we thought AAA was AAA no matter where it was. I'll never give up my past city's membership!

Just crazy

 

[Hikergirl]

So when the car tells me the airbag is off, it makes no difference if I'm in a wreck, the computer decides if it should be deployed regardless of the weight of the individual in the front seat?

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

We have PLUS!! And have been plus members for over 25 years!! 4 of us in our family have cards and we each get 4 calls a year and I think can get tows up to 100 miles.

Our membership is based out of the City we USED to live in when we got married, but it's like 20 minutes away from where we live now. When I renewed I never changed my membership over to the town I now live and boy am I glad! Not only is the membership rate more expensive they have wackier rules!

DH and I went there today to get our pics taken for passport renewals. When we got the pics 10 years ago they were free, now there is a 8.95 charge, I was like well ok whatever. Then they looked at my card and said oh your membership is with X city they do give free passport pics for Plus members, but you have to go to one of their offices. Fine it's across from my work no worries.

I'm none to happy with my towns branch of AAA. When we asked why different benefits they said because AAA's are like franchises and they can all have different benefits, rates, etc. Well what do you know, learn something new every day we thought AAA was AAA no matter where it was. I'll never give up my past city's membership!

Just crazy

Whew I agree it is crazy. Sounds like a mess for you and that sucks. I've got a few branches in my area so I suppose I'm lucky. I've been a AAA member for something like IDK 15+ years I was just on my mom's until about 8 years ago where I switched onto my own account when I left the household after graduating college. I had AAA for my auto and renters insurance for a while too.

I honestly didn't know there would be different rules for different cities. I know different branches have different freebees. Like for instance one of the AAA offices in my area sent me a postcard to come in and get a free tote a couple years back it was however only through that particular office.

My AAA is AAA of MO even though I live in KS because of the area in KS I'm in is serviced by AAA of MO. AAA Allied Group of KS services all 105 counties with the exception of 5 counties (mine being 1 of them serviced by AAA of MO).

I know the different clubs of AAA may be different but I didn't know in terms of cities. Could it be that when you moved cities you moved to a different Regional territory of AAA? I could def. see different rules there still stinks though for you and sounds like a hassle when you least need it.

I guess now you know for the future lol and now I know more about how AAA operates elsewhere.

 

[runwad]

Ya I guess I moved from one county to another county too so there's that. But still I didn't realize different rules/benefits. I mean the whole can't pick up a car from where it was dropped off thing is nuts! What the heck! Why does that matter? If I have 4 tows and I haven't used ANY why does it matter from where they picked up and dropped off? All that should matter is do you have enough tows left.

But I'll tell you why it matters it's more $$ for them when they get to charge you for that tow

 

[Imzadi]

As far as charging you for the tow what level of AAA do you have?

We've had that happen too, where we could only tow the car once. We had basic AAA. We were discussing to maybe have the car towed home as it may only have needed a simple remedy, like a spark plug needed changing or the alternator not charging properly. We had a friend who was a mechanic and could easily change those at our house. But, the tow guy told us, if it wasn't a simple repair and the car was at our house, WE'D have to pay to have it then towed elsewhere. AAA wouldn't move it again. He said the free tow was considered an emergency tow. Moving the car to a secondary location isn't considered emergency service.

Of course, as you & the OP pointed out, the car never breaks down at a time when you can call your local mechanic and ask what to do, or in a place where you know any mechanic in the covered area.

 

[Imzadi]

Cars get totaled out due to hail damage all the time. Mechanically fine to drive but too costly to replace parts and repair what dents you can without replacement.

Between this example and cars being T-boned, (hit in the side, usually due to someone running a red light,) in which the side of the car may have been hit, but the front end is fine, I'm still hoping that there are perfectly fine parts sitting in auto salvage yards, waiting to be put to use again, and the OP's body shop can cobble the parts together at a good price for the OP.


OT: I've seen some really bad hail storms on the news, which are the size of golf balls. What do you guys do if you are caught in a hail storm and there's no tree or cover nearby? It must be dangerous.