Territory Airbag fails to deploy

[Joe5619]

Originally Posted by geckoGT

Would you not be concerned if a major safety feature of your vehicle failed?

NO, 100% NO.. I'am alive so the car did its job.. I dont care what make of car it was, Glass half full!! Be thankful, that today was not your last!!

[Fiesta God]

Can understand the concern, with the forces that appear to be involved with such damage to the seat rail, you would have expected the airbags to deploy, as they probably would have lessend the chest injuries that were sustained by the driver.


However, at the end of the day you ask yourself one question after an accident like this one - am I alive and will I make a decent recovery?

If the answer is yes, then the car has done it's job.


That said, I would still think Ford would like to double check their safety systems in the vehicle, as it does seem strange the airbags didn't deploy.

[Road_Warrior]

If one of the sensors behind the bumper was defective there would have been a fault thrown up on the system.

[MexicanBatman]

Ford said the sensor was fine and functioned as normal

But the reason for the accident was that a balljoint let go, he veered into on coming traffic, went for the brakes, but the hoses split, and the seat rails nearly ripped out because of rust!

Lol I dunno

But the car is a writeoff, so why not test it yourself ( if you were the owner ) and see if you can get the airbag to fire, if you can it still works and wasn't needed...

Sounds like a hard hit, I have seen airbags deploy in very soft hits, like that commodore video on here somewhere..... Possibly the fail thread LOL

[dylancox]

Originally Posted by MexicanBatman

Ford said the sensor was fine and functioned as normal

But the reason for the accident was that a balljoint let go, he veered into on coming traffic, went for the brakes, but the hoses split, and the seat rails nearly ripped out because of rust!

Lol I dunno

But the car is a writeoff, so why not test it yourself ( if you were the owner ) and see if you can get the airbag to fire, if you can it still works and wasn't needed...

Sounds like a hard hit, I have seen airbags deploy in very soft hits, like that commodore video on here somewhere..... Possibly the fail thread LOL

Can balljoints just let go like that, or would the front end have been clunking around badly for a while before they let go?

[MexicanBatman]

It's a joke ;)

But yes they can.. Happened to a dude I work with on his vectra lol poor bugger

[Stoney!]

Originally Posted by geckoGT

Would you not be concerned if a major safety feature of your vehicle failed? I know would want to know why and I think Ford should perhaps have a look for the reason, perhaps there is a problem and next time the occupant may not be so lucky. Instead they fill you with crap about how they all do that or it is within tolerances, without even looking. Safety devices not functioning are the things large law suits are made of.

You need to understand something here, chest injuries that require 2 weeks of hospitalisation is not insignificant (it is not just a couple of busted ribs). A bit more force and that would have been fatal, a bit less and it would have been no hospitalisation. What we don't know is what he hit his chest on. If he hit his chest on the steering wheel and the airbag did not deploy, he probably has good grounds for a law suit against Ford, that is what airbags are there for.

I also have little doubt that had the vehicle involved been a Holden Captiva, the responses here would be very different.

Boy do you deserve some rep points for that, you said all I wanted to say and then some!

Stoney!

[The Snout]

"But the 2 weeks in hospital and chest injuries were within tolerances..." said a Ford spokesman.

[ltd]

It's a very unusual situation but I have a contrary view; this guy should be thanking ford for not busting his wrist.
Many people when they see an accident about to happen tense up, and in lots of cases I know of that involves grabbing the steering wheel really hard. When the airbag does deploy, usually with this kind of grip they'll end up fracturing their wrist.
Gecko, in your experience you agree that the most common injuries in severe accidents are broken ribs from the seatbelts and broken wrists? When I was doing suburban law these were the most common injuries I saw for compensation cases.

Anyway I digress, this guy should be counting his lucky stars and whilst I'd want to know why the airbag didn't deploy, the fact that I'm alive after an accident against a truck would make me feel thankful that I was driving a ford territory and not a Geely (which just achieved a zero star rating).

[geckoGT]

Originally Posted by bobthebilda

Regardless, the pretensioners function is only to take off the little bit of slack that is left, when the seat belt locks. At the very least, the belt should have locked, thus severely decreasing any forward body movement of the occupant (and seat)

Incorrect actually. The pretensioner is a device that fires prior to the seat belt locking to take the slack up and hold the occupant into the seat, this happens in the first milliseconds of the crash before forces have been applied to the occupant. It is similar to firing a large bore rifle, if you hold the butt 1" off your shoulder and fire you will cop a hell of a kick and bruise. If you pull the butt firmly into your shoulder you will get a strong push but no bruise. Pretensioners work the same way, by taking up the slack they allow the seat belts to absorb the force through stretch without the body moving forward at speed and then stopping suddenly against a locked belt. Seat belts without tensioners allow a couple of inches of travel before locking which causes significant injury in high force collisions. Pretensioner systems greatly reduced injury patterns, primarily in the chest in high force crashes.

Honestly this whole situation is very difficult without knowing some key information first. The information that is available is very limited and information such as the following points would help.

1. What was the speed of the collision and was it front on, was it offset or was it more of an angled collision?

2. What were the exact injuries sustained by the occupant? We know it is chest injuries and it required a hospital stay of 2 weeks so I suspect it may have been rib fractures with pneumothorax (collapsed lung) and/or lung contusions (bruising of the lung tissue). Both of these are serious and often life threatening injuries. Also what was the age of the occupant, this matters as the very young or very old suffer more injury under the same forces?

3. What was the extent of the damage to the vehicle? Saying the car was a write off does not mean much as I have seen many cars that were a write off that did not involve large amounts of structural damage and passenger cell deformation. I would suggest that because of the seat rail failure (or perhaps designed collapse, not sure on this one) the forces were very high and there was significant passenger cell deformation.

One point that many people do not realise is the function of seat belts, pre tensioners and airbags. The aim is not to stop the occupant immediately as this action in high force injuries causes injuries. In the early days of seat belts they used to let the body move forward large amounts and then stop it dead (dead, being a very appropriate word) against the belt. The end result is the body would move forward at the crash speed and then in a split second stop against the seat belt. These forces cause what are known in the field of emergency medicine as deceleration injuries (known as the 3rd impact in the automotive safety world). Most of these injuries are life threatening and consist of damage to the lungs, large blood vessels (especially the aorta which was often sheared off the heart) and the heart itself as all these organs slammed into the chest wall. In the early days seat belts increased the survivability of lower speed impacts but in high speed they actually caused some problems that were not previously encountered. The primary cause of death started to shift from being head injury (through the windscreen) in the unrestrained victim, to chest trauma in the restrained victim.

Now there have been some major changes in restraint systems to increase the amount of time it takes to slow the body from impact speed to nil (pulse time). In order of application in an accident they are as follows.

1. Pretensioners fire pulling the belt tight before any force has yet reached the occupant.
2. The seat belt locks and prevents excessive forward movement of the occupant.
3. The seat belt stretches as the movement of the occupant applies force against it, further slowing the occupant and increasing the pulse time.
4. The airbag deploys in case the occupant moves forward enough or the internal structures (think dash and steering wheel) are displaced enough to contact the occupant.
5. If occupant/internal structure occurs all surfaces have either shock absorption built in or are padded, think of padded dash, padded steering wheels and collapsing steering columns.

My point here is this. Yes he survived, albeit after 2 weeks in hospital and yes he is lucky to survive what appears to be a large crash. Having said that there appears to be question over the airbags and perhaps the seat belt pre tensioners. Perhaps if these systems did fail, he was not protected by major safety features of the car that should have functioned. Perhaps if they had of functioned he may have walked out of hospital that night with little more than a seat belt mark, minor bruising and perhaps a few air bag burns.

As for the airbag test function on starting of the car, no test that does not apply crash forces or actual unit function is 100% reliable. To my knowledge the test probably tests the electrical circuit but does not test the force required to operate the system, if it did the airbags would fire off in your face when you start the car in the morning. Any computer monitoring can fail to diagnose a fault and I have 2 good examples, one car related and one not.

1. My BAII GT had rough idle issues and pinging under load with no fault codes shown at any time on the number of times it was examined over the 12 months it had this fault (examined at a number of places). I acted on a hunch and replaced the O2 sensors and the problem was solved, no O2 sensor fault codes were ever shown.
2. Our previous model defibrillator had a test function that was carried out at the start of each shift that tested the internal circuitry of the unit in its ability to deliver a shock in defibrillation modes. This test did not require hooking the defibrillator to any manikin and delivering a shock. In that test the patient extension lead was not tested and this was the test that was prescribed by the manufacturer. After two resuscitation attempts where the defibrillator failed to deliver a shock to the patient it was found that it was the patient leads that had failed. We then changed our test and hooked the machine up to a defibrillation manikin using the extension leads to confirm it was actually delivering a shock. The end change was a different pad system was introduced that did not require the extension leads and eventually we changed to a new defibrillator. The point here is the prescribed function test put out by the manufacturer failed as it did not test the whole system to the point of delivery.

The test system of the airbags is probably as good as you can get without causing damage but short of firing off your airbags every morning by hitting the sensor with a sledge hammer, it is not 100%.

Perhaps the reason for the failure of the airbags was owner caused. Perhaps he had a bull bar fitted that is not designed to be used with airbag equipped vehicles, perhaps there were other after market modifications to the vehicle.

As for the question as to do the manufacturers investigate vehicles that safety systems appeared to have failed. Probably not unless there has been an injury or death and defence of a liability law suit is required. Perhaps they should investigate, many safety improvements occurred in the aviation industry as a result of such investigations. Perhaps they might find a fault with a sensor that is not picked up in the function test and can then re design the sensor.

I think the end result is there are too many variables and too many unknowns to say with any certainty that the vehicle safety systems were not faulty. It is my opinion from what I do know that it appears they may have been a system failure and if I was the driver I would be asking questions. I would not be doing it through the local ford dealer though, they don't know squat and are unlikely to give it more than a fleeting thought. Perhaps a call to ford themselves would get better results.

[Jim Goose]

I cant find any related stories online, as i said it was on the local news.

1. What was the speed of the collision and was it front on, was it offset or was it more of an angled collision?

It was head on when looking at the damage, evenly compacted!
Front end damage had made it (at a guess) about a foot and half shorter.
they only showed the drivers side of the vehicle, both doors can be opened and closed, but drivers door didnt line up square anymore.

2. What were the exact injuries sustained by the occupant? We know it is chest injuries and it required a hospital stay of 2 weeks so I suspect it may have been rib fractures with pneumothorax (collapsed lung) and/or lung contusions (bruising of the lung tissue). Both of these are serious and often life threatening injuries. Also what was the age of the occupant, this matters as the very young or very old suffer more injury under the same forces?

The guy was probably in his 50s, and was also a former drag racer in the 1970/80s
Picture of his XY drag car was shown. He wasnt over weight.

All the plastic around the door pillar which surrounds the seat belt had also come off.

The letter he got was actually from fords head office, not the local dealer.
So i am guessing that someone other then a dealer mechanic came down to look at it.

[Streets]

As usual, gecko's posts are a gleaming diamond in a sea of ****.

[geckoGT]

Originally Posted by Jim Goose

I cant find any related stories online, as i said it was on the local news.



It was head on when looking at the damage, evenly compacted!
Front end damage had made it (at a guess) about a foot and half shorter.
they only showed the drivers side of the vehicle, both doors can be opened and closed, but drivers door didnt line up square anymore.



The guy was probably in his 50s, and was also a former drag racer in the 1970/80s
Picture of his XY drag car was shown. He wasnt over weight.

All the plastic around the door pillar which surrounds the seat belt had also come off.

The letter he got was actually from fords head office, not the local dealer.
So i am guessing that someone other then a dealer mechanic came down to look at it.

Based on what you have said there.

1. He is not of sufficient age to be more likely to sustain serious chest injuries at lower forces. I would be interested in seeing the damage to the steering wheel, was it bent showing a chest to wheel impact (the most likely in this scenario).

2. The misalignment of plastics, misalignment of the doors and the damage to the seat rail shows significant force transfer to the occupant cell. I have no doubt this involved a collision greater than the normal trigger point for an airbag.

3. A square on frontal impact should trigger both the driver and passenger airbags.

4. Former drag racer, were there any mods to the car that may have affected airbag sensors (we will probably never know the answer to that one but it is possible)?

I wonder if a representative from ford has actually inspected the car or did they just go by what the service centre told them?

The way I see it, based on the information available and my experience at hundreds of road crashes, those airbags should have deployed. The crash appears to have been a classic instance that precedes an airbag deployment with sufficient force. I also have little doubt that had they deployed his injuries were likely to have been significantly less.

Of course my opinion is limited by the fact that I was not at the scene of the crash, I have not seen the car and I have not seen the driver.

[geckoGT]

Originally Posted by ltd

Gecko, in your experience you agree that the most common injuries in severe accidents are broken ribs from the seatbelts and broken wrists? When I was doing suburban law these were the most common injuries I saw for compensation cases.

.

In my experience rib fractures are pretty rare in all crashes but not uncommon in high mechanism crashes. Wrist fractures seem quite rare, I can only remember one crash that involved a wrist fracture on a driver, been to a couple where the wrist/arm fracture was on a passenger. My view may also be tainted because often insignificant injuries such as wrist are missed pre hospital. A swollen wrist is not as noticeable nor does it require the work that a chest trauma or abdo trauma does. We are often not with the victim long as we only do what is required to stabilise and transport and we do this fast. Our average time on scene with a major trauma that is not entrapped is about 10-20 minutes and we normally only have about the same to get to a hospital, there is a lot to do in that 20-40 minutes.

The most common injuries I see on high force crashes are chest, pelvic, abdominal and neck.

I guess my experience is different because I go to a high volume of crashes but most are lower speed with lower forces involved. High force crashes are rarer than people think.

[Jim Goose]

4. Former drag racer, were there any mods to the car that may have affected airbag sensors (we will probably never know the answer to that one but it is possible)?

Personalized number plates???? lol
Its looked all stock, factory rims etc... no bullbar.

[geckoGT]

Originally Posted by Jim Goose

Personalized number plates???? lol
Its looked all stock, factory rims etc... no bullbar.

It was worth the thought, I though it was unlikely but not impossible.

[svo supporter]

I wonder how many people will eat humble pie over this thread? Not so long ago , I copped a roasting and a half over safety items being "fail proof", as shown by the link.

http://www.fordforums.com.au/showthread.php?t=11305690


Now, I do feel sorry for the poor fella involved in the accident, just in case I come across as being a little uncaring. At least he lives to tell the tail and I don't reckon buying a lotto ticket will achieve much. He used his luck up with the accident

[vztrt]

Originally Posted by svo supporter

I wonder how many people will eat humble pie over this thread? Not so long ago , I copped a roasting and a half over safety items being "fail proof", as shown by the link.

http://www.fordforums.com.au/showthread.php?t=11305690


Now, I do feel sorry for the poor fella involved in the accident, just in case I come across as being a little uncaring. At least he lives to tell the tail and I don't reckon buying a lotto ticket will achieve much. He used his luck up with the accident

So how well would he come out with an older car into a truck then??

[geckoGT]

Originally Posted by svo supporter

I wonder how many people will eat humble pie over this thread? Not so long ago , I copped a roasting and a half over safety items being "fail proof", as shown by the link.

http://www.fordforums.com.au/showthread.php?t=11305690


Now, I do feel sorry for the poor fella involved in the accident, just in case I come across as being a little uncaring. At least he lives to tell the tail and I don't reckon buying a lotto ticket will achieve much. He used his luck up with the accident

A new car that has safety features that may have a 1% chance of failing will still be way better than an old car without those features, the old car will have to do without them 100% of the time.

No humble pie to be had, no one said they were fail safe, just way better than none at all.

I think it would be best to not go over that ground again.

[NC1183]

I have a question. Was the Territory moving at the time of accident, if so what speed, air-bag systems don't activate till 30 to 40 km/h

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by Jim Goose

Impact was bad enough that his seat rails were almost ripped off.
Yet his airbag didnt deploy.

We have a Mercedes Sprinter in at work which has had a MASSIVE side swipe from the firewall onwards, engine twisted on an angle, rails bent 45 degrees + and not one airbag deployed.

[geckoGT]

Originally Posted by Big Damo

We have a Mercedes Sprinter in at work which has had a MASSIVE side swipe from the firewall onwards, engine twisted on an angle, rails bent 45 degrees + and not one airbag deployed.

That is because it was side impact, frontal airbags do not deploy on side or rear impacts. If the vehicle was fitted with side impacts they would have deployed but Sprinters aren't.

[mik]

it`s always for folk easy to critisize when behind a computer monitor armed with only here say as facts, does any one know the history of the vehicle in question? , has it ever had accident repairs before , known or unknown, hmmm more missing factual evidence? can any one tell us the angle that the vehicle collided or the speed? personally i think i`d back the manufacturer on this one.

[Jim Goose]

Originally Posted by NC1183

I have a question. Was the Territory moving at the time of accident, if so what speed, air-bag systems don't activate till 30 to 40 km/h

Yes it was in motion... it was a head on.

can any one tell us the angle that the vehicle collided or the speed? personally i think i`d back the manufacturer on this one.

IT WAS A HEAD ON.... in case it was missed...

[geckoGT]

Originally Posted by Jim Goose

Yes it was in motion... it was a head on.



IT WAS A HEAD ON.... in case it was missed...

I was going to say that but then I thought it had been said enough so I left it alone.

Interesting no one has replied to my question of what opinions would be like around here if the car involved was a Holden Captiva.

[svo supporter]

Originally Posted by geckoGT

A new car that has safety features that may have a 1% chance of failing will still be way better than an old car without those features, the old car will have to do without them 100% of the time.

No humble pie to be had, no one said they were fail safe, just way better than none at all.

I think it would be best to not go over that ground again.

If you read through that particular thread again, there were people throughout that thread saying they are fail safe, or provide proof of safety items failing, etc etc. Would you like me to provide pages of such comments?

As for the truck comment. I wonder if that person saw the Adelaide news about 2 weeks ago. I believe a new model car and truck got rather messed up, resulting in the unthinkable happening. So we won't go there now

[geckoGT]

Originally Posted by svo supporter

If you read through that particular thread again, there were people throughout that thread saying they are fail safe, or provide proof of safety items failing, etc etc. Would you like me to provide pages of such comments?

As for the truck comment. I wonder if that person saw the Adelaide news about 2 weeks ago. I believe a new model car and truck got rather messed up, resulting in the unthinkable happening. So we won't go there now

Here we go again.

So what do you think of my 100%/99% of the time comment?

[DJR-351]

Originally Posted by geckoGT

Interesting no one has replied to my question of what opinions would be like around here if the car involved was a Holden Captiva.

The bloody death traps should all be recalled of course!!!!

[vztrt]

Originally Posted by geckoGT

Interesting no one has replied to my question of what opinions would be like around here if the car involved was a Holden Captiva.

If the Captiva's occupants survived cause the cars safety cell was up to scratch then I wouldn't be fussed. Were talking about people's lives so I take the entire picture of how a vehicle will hold up in a collision.

As has been discussed to death on here a car has a safety system that has improved peoples chances of surviving an accident. A failure in airbag deployment has not stopped the other features that can help the passenger/s survive.

Unfortunately in this case the airbags didn't deploy in a head on. Why, well we really don't have any extensive information to explain why (its not like these are basic systems). Airbags will help in an accident buy by no means will they guarantee you life will be spared.

[geckoGT]

Originally Posted by vztrt

Unfortunately in this case the airbags didn't deploy in a head on. Why, well we really don't have any extensive information to explain why (its not like these are basic systems). Airbags will help in an accident buy by no means will they guarantee you life will be spared.

Very true and unfortunately without looking at the steering wheel I can't really say for sure if it would have reduced injury in this case. I suspect it would but that is not something I can confirm.