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I have two German-made, US-delivery cars with seatbelt switches and pressure mats (occupancy detection) in the passenger seats. I was hoping that this made the
by kw71 11y ago
I have two German-made, US-delivery cars with seatbelt switches and pressure mats (occupancy detection) in the passenger seats. I was hoping that this made them smarter than the Toyota and Volvo I own which have no such things wired into their airbag systems, which certainly work as described in this thread.
- petewailes 11y agoI'm guessing here, so pinch of salt required etc... I think you're probably in something safer there. The idea behind airbag activation sensors is that you don't want to trigger unnecessary deployments (for a few reasons, but that's a bit involved). That said, depending on the system setup and what type of crash you have, alters which car I'd rather be in. TL;DR: don't crash.
- ptaipale 11y agoWhen buying French-made used cars, one of the important things is to check that the seatbelt switches, pressure mats and their connections are OK. Otherwise, extremely annoying and somewhat costly visits to a car electricity specialist will be needed... (This is necessary to pass the annual MOT test here, not just a safety concern - if the OBD interface reports any errors, the car is automatically rejected in the test. Other than that, used Citroëns seem to be fine.)
- mzs 11y agoI want to clarify that in 2000 Volvo began selling cars in US with dual stage airbags (S80 at least) and by 2002 (in some cases MY03 cars though) all US Volvos had them for both front airbags. Dual stage does not mean having the seat weight sensor. That is what is part of what is termed advanced airbag system in US market. The Volvo system would inflate the airbag less or more rapidly based on force of collision and whether the seat was belted or not. You could have the dealer install a passenger side airbag lock-out though.