Service manual
How
The
Air
Bag
System
Works
Where is the air
bag?
The driver's air bag
is
in the middle of the steering wheel.
When
is
an air
bag
expected to inflate?
The air bag is designed to inflate
in
moderate to severe frontal
or
near-frontal crashes. The air bag
will
only
inflate
if
the velocity
of
the impact
is above the designed threshold level. When impacting straight into a wall
that does not move
or
deform, the threshold
level
for most
GM
vehicles is
between
9
and
14
mph
(14
and
23
km/h).
However, this velocity threshold
depends
on
the vehicle design and
may
be
several miles-per-hour faster or
slower. In addition, this threshold velocity
will
be considerably higher
if
the
vehicle strikes an object such as a parked car which
will
move and deform
on
impact. The air bag is also not designed to inflate in rollovers, side
impacts, or rear impacts where the inflation would provide no occupant
protection benefit.
In any particular crash, the determination
of
whether the air bag should
have inflated cannot be based solely on the level
of
damage on the
vehicle(s). Inflation
is
determined
by
the angle
of
the impact and the
vehicle's deceleration,
of
which vehicle damage is only one indication.
Repair cost
is
not a good indicator
of
whether an air bag should have
deployed.
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