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Dave_G
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rkj
Are these older air bags something one wants to be in front of, seems like a libabilty to me.
People always worry about old air bags exploding in their faces prematurely, but I challenge anyone to document a case of this ever happening. It seems to me that if this were a real threat, we'd have heard about it by now. Instead all we hear about are people afraid of it.
On the other hand, I can offer an anecdote of one old air bag functioning perfectly well. My track car (a Miata) is also driven on the street now and then, so I keep it registered, and in my state in order to pass its annual inspection I'm required to keep the air bag. It's a 1990, i.e. the first year that air bags were installed in all U.S. cars (IIRC), so it's about as old as an air bag can be. A couple years ago I missed the apex badly in Turn 2 at Mont Tremblant, tracked out onto the grass, and slid down the hill about 100 yards before smacking nose-first into the Armco at about 60 MPH. I can report that the 20-year old air bag deployed exactly as designed. Of course, between the 6-point racing harness, racing seat, helmet, and head-and-neck restraint, the air bag was entirely superfluous, and I don't think it even reached my face. But it definitely deployed as intended. (BTW, I was fine.)
FWIW, I keep the air bag in my E30. As a volunteer firefighter and EMT, I've responded to countless accident scenes and have seen first-hand the good they do. Of course there are horror stories too, and rare occasions when they do more harm than good, but IME on balance they are a Good Thing. YMMV
I have to ask, what's an Armco?
