Owners Manual
Where
is
the
air bag?
The driver’s air bag
is
in the middle
of
the steering wheel. The right-front
passenger’s air bag is located in the instrument panel
on
the passenger’s
side.
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
15
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.
It
is
possible that
in
a crash, only one
of
the
two
air bags in your Cadillac
will deploy. This is rare, but can happen in a crash just severe enough to
make an
air
bag inflate.
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.
What makes an air bag inflate?
In a frontal or near-frontal impact of sufficient severity, the air bag
sensing system detects that the vehicle is suddenly stopping as a result
of
a crash. The sensing system triggers a chemical reaction
of
the sodium
azide sealed in
the
inflator.
The
reaction produces nitrogen gas, which
inflates
a
cloth bag. The inflator, cloth bag, and related hardware are all
part
of
the air bag inflator modules packed inside the steering wheel and
in the instrument panel in front
of
the passenger.
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