That's common all over the country, but very noticeable when the bag is missing from the steering wheel. What Klitch is talking about is when a wrecked vehicle's steering wheel or dash is repacked without a bag, or has the deployed bag stuffed back in to make it look like the SRS system is fully functional but in reality isn't worth a happy crap.

Good article:Used airbags
SL

 

My friend hit a small tree in my 2002 going about 30mph with damage almost identical to SSCULLY's, only on passenger side instead of drivers. It caused a bit more hood crimping, broke the headlight cover and also caused some damage down the passenger side due to limbs. The drivers side airbag DID deploy, the passenger side was off at the time.

 

I totaled my 05 F-150 by hitting a tree at about 30-40 mph. The impact was dead center right on the plate. It pushed the center of bumper in about two ft. and pulled both sides out of place as well as putting a few wrinkels in the hood.
Now I am in the process of getting someone from Ford to go out and test the airbag system. Becuase I have already delt with the insurance company it is a huge hasel! Ford is not helping at all.

Matt

 

Ford is investigating my issue. The rep that first saw the truck was amazed that the airbag system did not deploy. He also showed me that BOTH bags were in the vehicle AND still unfired. We will see what happens.
On a happier note, I bought a 03 supercrew FX4 Lariat... Nice truck
Craig

 

I'm sorry but I think with kind of damage the Air bags SHOULD have went off. Air Bags don't just work if you hit a stationary object, if he stopped say 12ft from where the impact was and he was going 35 mph, it seems to me that he hit the car and stopped in less than 1 sec. That seems like a pretty steep deceleration to me.


James

 

Without some way to data-log the accident itself, there is no way to tell the severity of the accident. Again, the system doesn't care the amount of damage caused by the accident, it only cares about the acceleration rates. That's it. Nothing more. Without a data log of the accident to measure the accelerations encountered by the vehicle, there's no way to know what the system saw. It *may* be possible to pull the data off an event logger if the vehicle is equipped with an event logger in the SRS, but that would be tough to prove. If the system showed that the threshold had been exceeded, and an airbag event was called for and the airbags failed to deploy, then yes, you might have a case. Otherwise, it's your word that the airbags should have deployed versus the system which said the impact wasn't severe enough. Odds are that, unless you sustained some type of debilitating injury or financial hardship, it'll get you nowhere.

-Joe

 

There are many factors that affect airbag deployment. Like some said before what you hit and how you hit it is the determining factor. It's not necessarily the speed you are traveling, but in fact the amount of deceleration that your vehicle goes through that decides if the airbag is needed. Air bag sensors measure deceleration, vehicle speed and damage aren't good indicators of whether or not an air bag should have deployed. Also the angle the impact occurs as related to the vehicles center is a major component as well. I think if the impact is more than 30 degrees off center it will not deploy, not exactly sure of that number. It's been awhile since I've seen those numbers. Your trucks computer "blackbox" stores all those numbers and they can be retrieved by Ford to see what the numbers were in your crash to see if the airbags failed or if the specs of the crash were outside the parameters that determine if the bags should deploy or not. If you know someone or have a friend in law enforcement that has access to the software to download those numbers from your truck you could see them firsthand or at least have the information to go over with someone to find out. Accident reconstruction specialist do this in many serious crashes. Most Fords have that feature now though it depends on the year model.

Looking at the picture of your truck, your damage looks like it's flirting with being on or just outside of that fine line/angle that determines if it should deploy or not. But that's hard to tell just by looking at a picture.

 

Your impact seems to be spread over a larger area than sscully's. That in itself would dissipate the shock somewhat. Did you have time to hit the brakes? If you pushed something 12 feet you did not come to a sudden stop. The crumple zones in the frame did their work too. What did you hit anyways?

JMC

 

Funny you should ask... Another 97-03 F150 SCab.
My insurance company gave me my total loss figure, It was about 3k more than what I paid for the truck 2 years ago. At least I didnt get screwed for the value of my truck.