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Airbags?

KGNickl

NAXJA Forum User
Location
St. Louis, MO
I was wondering about cherokee and airbags and offroading? I don't want to remove them cause it's a daily driver but when i'm off I may want to run a switch to disable them? Anyone do anything like this? Ideas? Suggestions? Experiences? Thanks -Kyle
 
Suggestion is to not worry about it. Speeds you travel offroad aren't fast enough to allow you to decelerate so rapidly that the airbag deploys, and if it were to deploy you would probably be in enough of a bind that it's helpful. Or at least that's what the advocates tell you.
 
As far as I know the air bags are not even enabled until 35mph though they can deploy, from experience, if you are stopped at a traffic light and get hit by a tractor trailer doing 60mph who 'didn't notice the red light' but I don't know if it was the rear hit or the vehicle stopped in front that caused the deployment.... The only reason to get an airbag disable is if you have kids and the dealers were putting them in a few years ago but you had to sign a waiver and stuff, on the 98XJ's they went were the ashtray is on the center console. I think they stopped doing it. Off road it is not an issue unless you are doing high speed stuff.
 
RichP said:
As far as I know the air bags are not even enabled until 35mph though they can deploy, from experience, if you are stopped at a traffic light and get hit by a tractor trailer doing 60mph who 'didn't notice the red light' but I don't know if it was the rear hit or the vehicle stopped in front that caused the deployment.... The only reason to get an airbag disable is if you have kids and the dealers were putting them in a few years ago but you had to sign a waiver and stuff, on the 98XJ's they went were the ashtray is on the center console. I think they stopped doing it. Off road it is not an issue unless you are doing high speed stuff.
I had a pretty rough sideways roll @ 35mph and they didn't deploy so I don't think off road they would be a problem.
 
Kejtar said:
I had a pretty rough sideways roll @ 35mph and they didn't deploy so I don't think off road they would be a problem.
It's not the speed, although I thought there was a minimum that they were disabled under. The deceleration is what triggers the bag, and you apparently didn't do it right when you rolled.

For me, as a former Aviation Ordnanceman, the problem with the bags isn't the sensor, it's the fact that you have a gun pointed at your chest at all times. I used to work with CADs (Cartridge Actuating Devices), items that look like shotgun shells and are responsible for any number of aircraft occurrences to include jettisoning ordnance (bombs) from the pylon, jettisoning stuck pylons and launchers, blowing away the canopy, and ejecting the pilot. Voltage actuates them, and we learned early on that you don't screw around with CADs, nor do you allow most electrical work on an aircraft that has certain CADs in place. Just the minute surges and electrons running around the plane can fire a CAD... (n) Now put a similar CAD device in my Jeep and point it at my chest. Who among us hasn't had at least one weird electrical gremlin at some point? Doing our own wiring work can sometimes increase that risk, which brings me back to that gun pointed at my chest. It's loaded. Never point a weapon at anything you do not intend to shoot, so why do I have to have that aimed at me?? :soapbox:

Okay, I'm done. Coffee's your buddy when you want to spew out a rant in 2 minutes. :D
 
Kejtar said:
I had a pretty rough sideways roll @ 35mph and they didn't deploy so I don't think off road they would be a problem.

Yes, but there is also a decleromter in the ab module, rolling won't normally deploy them unless you are rolling as you impact something head on. I wonder if the new vehicles that have the side airbags would deploy in a rollover, guess it would depend on how hard you rolled over, they have to have some kind of sideways motion sensor... When we were hit the tractor that hit the car in back of us had their airbags deploy in their Nissan I think it was. When they slammed into the back of our rental blazer, ours did not deploy when we hit the Isuzu 4x4 in front of us but I had my foot pretty heavy on the brake so we did not travel that far, maybe 20ft.

I also had the TJ out at a jamboree pre-run at big boulder and hit a tree pretty had, hard enough to bury the passenger side of the new warn front bumper about 2-3 inches into about an 18" tree. Neither of them went off and it was a pretty solid hit that rattled my teeth and got my nose closer to the steering wheel than I liked. I hit hard enough that it popped out a dent that was in the passenger side nose piece of the fender where the signal had been pushed in about and inch or so, saved me the trouble of having to pop it out myself with a hammer and dolly so I'm pretty sure they won't go off in normal off roading and if they do you probably need it. Didn't bend the bumper either :D
 
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