Did you recently take on (or consider) a loan of 84 months or longer on a car purchase?
A reporter would like to speak with you about your experience; please reach out to PR@Edmunds.com by 7/25 for details.
A reporter would like to speak with you about your experience; please reach out to PR@Edmunds.com by 7/25 for details.
Options
Chevrolet Cobalt Airbag Deploying
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Air bags are typically designed to deploy in frontal and near-frontal collisions, which are comparable to hitting a solid barrier at approximately 13-23 km/h (8-14 mph). Roughly speaking, a 23 km/h (14 mph) barrier collision is equivalent to striking a parked car of similar size across the full front of each vehicle at about 45 km/h (28 mph). This is because the parked car absorbs some of the energy of the crash, and is pushed by the striking vehicle. Unlike crash tests into barriers, real-world crashes typically occur at angles, and the crash forces usually are not evenly distributed across the front of the vehicle. Consequently, the relative speed between a striking and struck vehicle required to deploy the air bag in a real-world crash can be much higher than an equivalent barrier crash.
Because air bag sensors measure deceleration, vehicle speed and damage are not good indicators of whether an air bag should have deployed. Occasionally, air bags can deploy due to the vehicle's undercarriage violently striking a low object protruding above the roadway surface. Despite the lack of visible front-end damage, high deceleration forces may occur in this type of crash, resulting in the deployment of the air bag.