[dalchri]

'97 GTI 4-cyl manual.
I was rear-ended on Friday ~25 mph. I have detached my airbags (the electrical connectors from the airbag units). If I ever sell the car, I want to make certain the airbags don't go off when they are hooked back up.
How can I tell if the airbag system is still sending the deploy signal to the airbags?

 

[chamaco77]

Re: I was rear-ended but I had my airbags detached. How can I tell if they will go o ... (dalchri)

Not sure How you can tell there is a signal being sent without deploying the airbag, but what I can tell you is that there are no rear sensors for the front airbags. So if you are rearended your airbags will not go off. They only come into play on frontal and sometimes side impacts. Now I can be wrong but I'm speaking from experience, I was rearended by an Infiniti G20 (drunkdriver) while I was stopped at a light and he was doing about 35-40, my airbags didn't deploy which was a good thing because to get that smell out of the car sucks. Since I kinda of saw him coming I had a split second to brace for impact so thank God nothing horrible happened. What did suck was the fact my car had only 4 miles on it and I was driving home from the dealer.
But anyway you should be able to connect your airbags up and be fine.

 

[Teets]

Re: I was rear-ended but I had my airbags detached. How can I tell i ... (chamaco77)

Quote, originally posted by chamaco77 »

What did suck was the fact my car had only 4 miles on it and I was driving home from the dealer.

oh man

 

[chamaco77]

Re: I was rear-ended but I had my airbags detached. How can I tell i ... (Teets)

Yeah it was all good though, that was back in 98, so I got to miss a little school time going to the chiropractor which turned out to have a HOT nurse that gave me back massages for fifteen minutes twice a week. As a high school kid I was considered the man for that, pretty sad I know but hey you gotta take what you could get. As for the drunk driver, we ended up suing him, that's where I got my first set of rims and my first suspension from. I don't make a habit out of trying to sue people for whatever reason but this guy was a loser who tried to leave the scene, if it weren't for his radiator being under my rear bumper, he probably would have taken off. The Infiniti was done, but my mk3 held up like a rock, all I needed was a bumper cover and an exhaust. No frame damage, not even broken tails, he was going so fast that when he jammed on the brakes his car nose dived so much it went under mine, and since my car was bone stock you know it was in 4X4 mode so getting under wasn't that hard.

 

[dalchri]

Re: I was rear-ended but I had my airbags detached. How can I tell i ... (chamaco77)

Good God, you just described my accident exactly (aside from the drunk driver)! I was stopped signalling for a left and was hit by a Dodge Neon. It took off my bumper cover with no body damage. Your account gives me faith that the damage is as superficial as it looks w/no frame damage.
His low front end punched his radiator in, hood, and fenders. They had to take it away on a wrecker. I did peg the Tach though cause I was in gear with it floored and the impact knocked it out of gear. Also knocked my ashtray open!
Thankfully I had the wheels straight cause there was oncoming traffic I would have been smacked into. I'm very thankful for such an easy hit.
That's an awesome tale chamaco77... almost makes the accident worth it! I don't know why I didn't get out of my car holding my back cause the Paramedic was sort of cute. I guess my wife would have gotten a little pissed. She wasn't in the car but I was hit only a block from my house so she was there in a few minutes.

 

[chamaco77]

Re: I was rear-ended but I had my airbags detached. How can I tell i ... (dalchri)

Yeah you would have been caught out in the open by your wife, but you could always say you weren't thinking straight due to the collision, which blurred your vision a little bit, and made you believe the paramedic was your wife. OK nobody thinks like that after an accident, so what the hell am I talking about but anyway, that was the first accident I had ever experienced in which I was the driver, I was almost trembling, I didn't know what to feel, I wanted to beat the snot out of the guy but at the same time, I was afraid something might have happened to me that I wouldn't know about until the next day. My car was still drivable so I drove it home, I didn't want a tow truck guy to even look at it, we all know what they can do to cars(sorry if anyone on the tex drives a tow truck, but if you do I'm sure you are more careful then any of the guys in my area). I'm just glad that I didn't hit the car in front of me, the light turned green as he hit me so the guy in front of me got out of the way just in time. The only long term affect it had on me was the fact that I check my rearview almost too much now.

 

[[email protected]]

Re: I was rear-ended but I had my airbags detached. How can I tell i ... (chamaco77)

The system shuts down when it sees there are no bags on the other end of the leads.. so you need not worry

 

[tiohero]

Re: I was rear-ended but I had my airbags detached. How can I tell i ... ([email protected])

Quote, originally posted by [email protected] »

The system shuts down when it sees there are no bags on the other end of the leads.. so you need not worry

You amaze me Derek. How do you know the most random facts about our cars?

 

[mack73]

Re: I was rear-ended but I had my airbags detached. How can I tell i ... (tiohero)

I was rearended around 30, no airbags were deployed. So you should be fine and as Derek mentioned, if they are disconnected they will not fire