Before we jump all over Nissan for the airbags not going off in the pictures that were posted lets break this accident down.

1. According to the description of the accident, the Durango tried to do a U turn in front of oncoming traffic and the Z hit the Durango at about a 90 degree angle to the drivers side door of the Durango. I am assuming the angle because there was another car that hit the Durango in the back on the same side so they must have been right next to each other.

2. After the first impact the Z was spun out and another car hit the Z in the side.

My theory on why the airbags didn't deploy is this. The airbags are "fired" electronically. When the Z hit the Durango, the front airbags deploy immediately. By the time the second car hit (probably 1 or 2 seconds) the Z there was an electrical power failure to the side airbags due to the battery failing in the collision or a short that caused the circuit breakers on the airbag or main fuse panel to trip. Without power, their is nothing to fire the side airbags.

My concern with this forum is that we are pumping out to much misinformation and prospective Z owners may get the wrong impression. One problem with one car doesn't always mean that all Z have that problem.

 

Ohio350Z,
I do not remember anyone saying that they were going to jump all over Nissan. Well, there was the one guy saying to sue Nissan, but that is not reflective of everone on this board.We would like an explanation of why the side airbags and head curtains did not deploy. If infact your explanation is correct maybe there can be a work around for a total power failure.
I do not believe that the Nissan Engineers have seen a totaled Z in real life. Only in a stage environment...IE test crashes. Jeremy might not have suffered a concussion had the side airbags and head curtains had deployed.
Just like software, nothing is perfect until it is tested in real life. Then here comes the patches and revisions.

 

If true, that would be a HUGE design flaw. The airbag system should have enough stored power to fire them with all external power cut off. Think about it, as the car crashes into something and begins to decelerate, the radiator is pushed into the front of the engine and has a good chance of shorting out the alternator. A lot of cars also have the battery right in the front corner. All of the service manuals that I've seen have warnings stating that you must wait for a period of time after the battery is disconnected to work on any part of the air bag system - steering wheel, dash, sensors, etc.

I just hope Nissan looks at it and figures out why they didn't deploy, if they should have.

-TB

 

My point is that he basically walked away from a severe accident without any major injuries to his head, legs, chest or arms. I think the car did what it was supposed to. Take a look at the picture. The passanger compartment has not been comprimised. The A pillars are still strait and the car is not bent into a v shape from the side. This gives me a lot of confidence that the Z was designed well in the event of a crash. I don't want to give the impression to new Z buyers that there is a potential problem with the airbags when we really don't know the full story. At least 5 people posted that they had serious concerns that the side airbags did not go off.

I didn't see or witness the accident, but you don't necessarily want your air bags going off in all situations. They are designed to reduce the decelartion forces from an impact (ie your head being whiplashed to a stop). If his car had slowed due to the first impact, the decelerative forces might not have been great enough to tirgger the side airbags. Also each airbat deploys seperately. If he was hit on the passenger side door, his driver's side air bag would not go off. The car will sense the impact and trigger the airbag where the impact occurs knowing that the drivers head will want to basically remain stationary and in essence the side of the car will be moving towards the occupants head (i.e. an object will remain stationary unless a force acts upon it). In this case the whole car wants to move sideways towards the driver. If you are sitting at a light and a guy comes a long and hits your car you may find the airbag deploying and hitting your head may or may not help you depending on how much force is generated by the impact of the collision.

Well enough about physics for tonight. By the way, I ordered my Z with airbags because the odds of them helping me outweigh the odds of them hurting me.

 

front view, see how the passenger compartment is intact.

 

It looks to me like the passenger compartment was compromised. Look how far the door is pushed in past the sill. Don't you think that kind of impact should have at least triggered the PASSENGER side airbag? I'm glad he didn't have a passenger in there. The results of the crash may have been much worse. By the way, I do consider a concussion a serious injury. Maybe not life threatening, but serious.

People have reason to be concerned here. It is very important, at least to me, that a small, high performance car be safe and hold up well in a crash. I would hate to buy the side air bags and have them not work the one time in my life I needed them to.

-TB

 

The car was hit HARD.

Based on what I have read/saw I do think the passenger compartment held up well. The amount of force to do what happened must have been large so I wonder why the passenger compartment side/head bags did not go off?

If someone was in there they would have needed them or they would have been hurt, period.

Whats up Nissan?

 

I think the side of the car held up well. It is designed to absorb the impact. I have seen many a car that gets t-boned in the side and you see the car get bent into a v or >. With all of the Z under carriage bracing the car should maintain it shape. Here are some examples of cars that didn't maintain there passenger compartment when hit in the side.

 

Another failure of the side compartment

 

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say the reason that the passenger side airbags did not deploy was because there was no one in the passenger seat. The seats probably have sensors in them to deploy the side airbags and head curtains.
My question is with an impact so severe why did the driver side airbags and head curtains not deploy. The actual "G" force of the impact I feel should have made the driver side deploy. I could be all wrong , that is why I'm possing the question to the Nissan Rep tomorrow.

 

Ohio350z

Do you know if the people survived those crashes and if the side airbags (if equipped) deployed?

 

You really can't compare other cars in unknown accident conditions and say that the 350Z held up well in comparison (but I think you know that)....

Also, keep in mind that you are looking at the final resting state of the passenger side door. At the point of maximum impact that door was deflected much further into the passenger compartment than it currently rests. I would guess that a passenger would have sustained moderate to severe injuries to lower body...

That being said, since the impact was on the pass. side of the Z, and there was no side deployment, does the seat have some type of weight sensor to prevent unecessary deployment if no passenger is present?

 

That would all make sense except that the front passenger airbag deployed... If it had a sensor for the passenger seat then why would it deploy?

 

omg poor z, one z of the boat and onto the junkyard. whos the owner of that z ? is he/she alright now ? how much loss does he/she incur ?? god bless them both car and driver

 

I thought about that, but you can clearly see that the passenger front air bag deployed. It doesn't look like the Z has "smart" air bags. It's possible that the seats and curtains run on a totally separate system, but that just wouldn't make engineering sense.

-TB

 

I think the side air bags did not deploy because the passenger side seat belt was not in use...

 

Just as a clarification...our first thought was that the side air bags did not go off due to no one being in the seat. We asked our dealer if this was a possible reason, but they needed to look into it before telling us either way.

My wife read the manual for the 350z in depth and found that maybe the side air bag sensor was not impacted. From the manual it looks like the side air bag sensor is next to the seat belt base at the bottom of the back of the door. The manual also says that the airbags are designed for high severity side impacts. I don't know if this means that in this accident the car was hit too far forward or too low and did not cause the airbags to go off for this reason.

We just thought Nissan would like to see a real accident outside of a test environment due to how new the car is.

The passenger door is pushed in so far that you can see the carpet from the passenger floor. As well, the passenger seat was crushed in. The seat was about 6 inches less accross after the accident than before the accident. The floor compartment is even more crushed. The picture I posted before was to give both sides of the accident. It doesn't show the depth of the second impact as you can't see this and the front damage at the same angle.

My wife and I both are glad that she was not in the passenger seat. We are also both glad that the side impact happened on the passenger side as I was able to walk away with mild cuts/bruises and a short term memory loss.

 

If you look at the Audi TT, it hit in probably the weakest spot on the car, right in the center of the wheel base. Side airbags would do nothing in a collision that severe, and I suspect the driver didn't survive.

The Z3's compartment is still intact as the chassis maintained it's shape for the passenger compartment but buckled near the firewall. Notice that the 350Z did the same thing.

 

I've posted before, and I'll say it again... I slid my car into a curb going sideways no faster than 10mph... Well anyways, I hit the curb with the passenger side of the body and my passenger's side AND curtain airbags popped out. Unfortunately I think because the air bags popped out, my friend, who was a passenger hit the curtain airbag which shot his head towards my side and therefore he hit his head on my head and that was painful.

Well anyways, if the airbags didn't pop out then I would have had less damage on my car and less physical damage as well. Also, I don't think that there is a sensor in the car but I'm not sure. Since the passenger front airbag popped out in Jeremy's car then I would guess there is no sensor. Oh and by the way, a lot of serious accidents happen with more collisions coming up after the first one due to a spin of some sort or other incoming vehicles. The airbags should keep popping out even though there is a power cut off after the initial crash. Airbags have their own "power supply" of some sort which charges everytime you start the car (that's why you see the airbag light when you start the engine).

 

So you saing that we shouldn't judje Nissan to hard for airbag not opened? Could happend to every car? Not a big deal? What are you talking about?

Side hit was hard, it's clear from the pictures and also from the testimony of driver. And airbag should've deploy. Period. Was it because of power outage or because of not enough testing... who cares? It's design flow either way. If people paying extra to install it - they making their choise. And it should deploy in accident. Will it help or not, that's different question... To pay $500 and to know your side airbag probably won't work - now that sucks.

You'll say again I'm jumping into conclusions. But how many accidents you need? Do you expect 100s? To make sure that statistic is correct? Personally I hope that it'll be the only one serious Z-accident for a long time. So thats the only information we have... and it gives me 100% failure rate.