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Airbag
system
Airbag
system
Important
information
Importance of wearing safety belts and
sitting properly
Airbags are only supplemental restraints
.
For
airbags to do
their
job, occupants
must
always
properly wear their safety belts and be in a prop-
er seating position.
For
your safety and the safety of your passen-
gers, befo re
driving
off, always:
"'
Adjust the driver's seat and steering wheel
properly
Q
page 114,
"'
Adjust the front passenger's seat properly
Q
page 60,
"'Wear
safety be
lt
s
properly
C?
page 126,
"'
Always proper ly use the proper child
restraint
to protect children
Qpage 152.
In a coll ision
airbags must
inflate within
the blink
of an eye and with considerab le force.
The
sup-
plemental airbags can cause injuries if the
driver
or the front seat passenger is not seated
proper•
Ly. Therefore in order to help the airbag to do its
job, it is important, both as a driver and as a pas-
senger to sit properly at all times.
By
keeping room between
your body and the
steering whee
l
and the front of the passenger
compartment,
the airbag can inflate fully and
completely and provide supplemental
protection
in certain frontal collisions
c>
page 114, Correct
passenger seating positions.
For
details on
the
operation of the seat adjustment
controls
c>
page 60.
It's especially important that children are proper-
ly
restrained
Qpage 152.
There is a lot that the driver and the passengers
can and must do to help the individual safety fea-
tures installed in your Audi work together as a
system
.
Proper seat ing position is
important
so that the
front airbag on the driver side can do its
job.
If
you have a phys ical impairment or condition that
prevents you from sitt ing
properly
on the dr iver
seat with the safety be lt
properly fastened
and
132
reaching the
pedals, specia
l
modifications
to
your
vehicle may
be
necessary.
Contact
your
authorized
Audi dea le r,
or call
Aud
i
Customer
Relat
ions at
1-800-822-2834.
When
the
airbag system dep loys
,
a gas generator
will fill
the
a irbags, break open
the
padded
cov-
ers,
and
inflate
between the
stee ring wheel
and
the driver and between the
instrument panel
and
the
front
passenger. The airbags
will
deflate
im-
mediate ly after deployment so that the front oc-
cupants can see through the windshield again
without interruption.
All
of
this
takes
place in the blink
of
an eye, so
fast that many people don't even realize that the
airbags have dep loyed
.
The airbags also inflate
with a great deal
of
force and nothing should
be
in
their way when they deploy. Front a irbags in
combination with properly worn safety belts slow
down and lim it the occupant's forwa
rd
move-
ment
.
Together they he lp
to
prevent the driver
and front seat passenge
r
from
hitt ing parts of
the
ins ide the veh icle wh ile reduc ing
the
forces
acting on
the
occupant dur ing the crash.
In this
way they
help
to
reduce
the risk
of
injury
to the
head
and upper
body in
the crash. Airbags do not
protect
the arms or the lower parts of the body.
Both front airbags
w
ill
not inflate in
all
fronta
l
collisions
.
The triggering of the airbag system de
-
pends
on the vehicle deceleration rate caused by
the collis ion and registered
by
the electronic con
-
trol
unit.
If th is rate is below the reference value
programmed into the control unit, the airbags
will
not be
triggered, even though the car may be
badly damaged as a result of the coll ision
.
Vehi-
cle damage,
repair
costs or
even the lack of
vehi-
cle
damage is
not
necessar ily an
indication
of
whether
an airbag
should inflate
or
not.
It is not
possible to
define a range of vehicle
speeds that w
ill
cover
every
possible
kind and an-
gle of
impact
that
will always
trigger the
a irbags,
since the circumstances
w
ill
vary conside rably
be-
tween one collision and another. Impo
rt
ant
fac-
tors include, for example, the nature (hard or
soft) of the object which the car hits, the angle of
impact,
vehicle speed, etc
.
The front airbags will
IJ>-
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