Crash, Airbag Failed..

[Proudy]

Hey

I'm new to this forum. I had a quick look for similar posts but I didn't find anything.. Sorry if this has been asked before or if I'm posting in the wrong place.

The story

A couple of nights ago my mother was on her way home from caring for my ill grandfather, when some foreigner plowed head-on into her after running a red light.

Despite the frontal impact, My mothers airbag did not deploy. The impact was definitely hard enough for it to deploy because the bonet and front wings are all buckled up and radiator fluid and oil spewed out the bottom. She had shopping which ended up in the front foot well and bottles of milk in the boot exploded. How the hell hard must a car crash to set an airbag off?

Questions

I was wondering if anybody here knows of any reasons why the air bag did not deploy?

Are there any common problems for ford airbags? Could this be a fault?

My mother is in a shocking state with massive cardiac problems from hitting the wheel. All of which would not be happening had her airbag worked.

Any information will be greatly appreciated, I am not sure where to take this..

The Car

All I know about the car is it's a Ford Ka2, from 2000. Possibly the special edition. (if this means anything to you)

It looks exactly the same as this

Thank you for reading.

[fishpond 47]

Hey

I'm new to this forum. I had a quick look for similar posts but I didn't find anything.. Sorry if this has been asked before or if I'm posting in the wrong place.

The story

A couple of nights ago my mother was on her way home from caring for my ill grandfather, when some foreigner plowed head-on into her after running a red light.

Despite the frontal impact, My mothers airbag did not deploy. The impact was definitely hard enough for it to deploy because the bonet and front wings are all buckled up and radiator fluid and oil spewed out the bottom. She had shopping which ended up in the front foot well and bottles of milk in the boot exploded. How the hell hard must a car crash to set an airbag off?

Questions

I was wondering if anybody here knows of any reasons why the air bag did not deploy?

Are there any common problems for ford airbags? Could this be a fault?

My mother is in a shocking state with massive cardiac problems from hitting the wheel. All of which would not be happening had her airbag worked.

Any information will be greatly appreciated, I am not sure where to take this..

The Car

All I know about the car is it's a Ford Ka2, from 2000. Possibly the special edition. (if this means anything to you)

It looks exactly the same as this

Thank you for reading.

Hi firstly welcome, really sorry to hear about your mum and hope she gets well soon, regarding the airbag, if I remember from reading from another ford club that I'm on, the gas cartridges that make the airbag trigger have a life span of 10 years (no body ever tells you this) and should be renewed after this time, this could be the case here, your mums car is'ent the only one though try looking for salvage cars, it is shocking at the state of some of them and the ads say 'airbags not deployed'

[Proudy]

Hey Fishpond. Thank you for the reply and the welcome.

It is interesting that you mention that because I have since read a little about ford airbags. It seems it is fairly common for them to automatically disable when the system detects any kind of fault, particularly in the sensors. I presume it disables the airbag to prevent the faulty sensor from deploying it randomly when it's not needed. Which is understandable, the last thing you need while driving down the motorway is your airbag randomly deploying!

However, I have read that when the airbag is disabled or not functioning for any reason, a light apears on the dashboard and stays on. I can see which light this is but it does not light up.

So this is where I am confused. I am thinking about taking it up with ford, because I think something needs to be done about this.

I obstained an obscure picture of the car. Is there anything about this picture that would suggest a reason why an airbag would not work?

[catch]

Sorry to hear about your mother, I hope she makes a full recovery.

However, I have read that when the airbag is disabled or not functioning for any reason, a light apears on the dashboard and stays on. I can see which light this is but it does not light up.

It should light up at position II on the ignition with all the other lights. This is a self test of all warning lights, if it does not light the bulb should be replaced. If it still does not light up it needs checking out.

My wife was in our Focus 1.8 Zetec when she was involved in a head on collision with an idiot in a BMW Mini Cooper. It was less than 9 weeks short of being 10 years old, yet both air bags deployed as they should do.