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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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