Wonder when the 1LE pops it air bags if GM will cover it

[rrpilot]

I think that any one suggesting to disable or otherwise mess with air bags is irresponsible. They only case airbags should be messed with is they are being removed for a competition only car that has roll bar and seat with 5 point seat installed. It would be horrible to find that a person disabled air bags crashed badly and was hurt or killed due to air bags not deploying, not to mention many medical insurance claims could potentially be denied once they found out air bags were disabled. This issue should be pursued to get GM to answer as looks like sensors and accelerometers are faulty, as they should only go off if sensor detects impact or pending roll over.

[Pro Stock John]

Originally Posted by rrpilot

I think that any one suggesting to disable or otherwise mess with air bags is irresponsible. They only case airbags should be messed with is they are being removed for a competition only car that has roll bar and seat with 5 point seat installed. It would be horrible to find that a person disabled air bags crashed badly and was hurt or killed due to air bags not deploying, not to mention many medical insurance claims could potentially be denied once they found out air bags were disabled. This issue should be pursued to get GM to answer as looks like sensors and accelerometers are faulty, as they should only go off if sensor detects impact or pending roll over.

Hmmm.

Bannonm is basically sharing that he has a car that he races once in a while that had the side air bags go off at an event. I think if I was another racer like him, I'd be pretty concerned.

I drag race all the time, like every month. I've had some pretty quick stuff in the past too low 9's etc. If I thought for a second that the airbags would go off running the car once in a while, I'd look at how to disable them for that event.

Your advice really does not help the weekend occasional racer at all.

I'm aware of about like 5 instances where air bags have gone off in late model GM cars during autocross and road racing. That's a lot in two years, because I'm not aware of any in 15 years of racing 4th gens.

Respectfully,

John

[Jim968]

Originally Posted by rrpilot

I think that any one suggesting to disable or otherwise mess with air bags is irresponsible. They only case airbags should be messed with is they are being removed for a competition only car that has roll bar and seat with 5 point seat installed. It would be horrible to find that a person disabled air bags crashed badly and was hurt or killed due to air bags not deploying, not to mention many medical insurance claims could potentially be denied once they found out air bags were disabled. This issue should be pursued to get GM to answer as looks like sensors and accelerometers are faulty, as they should only go off if sensor detects impact or pending roll over.

You probably have to have road course experience to understand this, but are you aware that an inadvertent deployment on track can CAUSE an accident?

Imagine you're doing something that requires 100% concentration and leaves NO room for error. Then imagine something unexpectedly blowing up in your face, and maybe blowing your hands off of the steering wheel. The OP in this case went off track into the grass, but he could just as easily could have had a serious incident.

[rrpilot]

Originally Posted by Jim968

You probably have to have road course experience to understand this, but are you aware that an inadvertent deployment on track can CAUSE an accident?

Imagine you're doing something that requires 100% concentration and leaves NO room for error. Then imagine something unexpectedly blowing up in your face, and maybe blowing your hands off of the steering wheel. The OP in this case went off track into the grass, but he could just as easily could have had a serious incident.

I totally understand the issue and the question. My point is that airbags potentially has an issue in sensors and GM should address it. I don't think disabling is the correct solution as there are way to many factors involved and liability as well. I think that GM should cover this and should be pushed further since no sensors were impacted. I would think that the data onboard would support what happened.

As for road course experience I do fully understand the dynamics on this aspect, as I have thousands of miles and hundreds of laps road racing but some what different as I raced motorcycles for many years. In the motorcycle RRing community we had a similar situation just not as dramatic or imo as dangerous as airbags going off. All modern street motorcycles with fuel injection have a tip over sensor that shuts off the engine when the bike falls over. The problem was many racers get really fricken low and the sensor thought it tipped over and cut the fuel which when leaned over doing 120- 180 MPH does not do well and usually ends in a high side and launching the rider to the moon, the reentry is not good and usually ends up in a ride to local hospital. Point being in this case many riders and teams unplugged the tip over sensor to eliminate the issue but sometimes the trade off was when a bike crashed it usually caught fire. That's when you hope the corner workers are fast with the fire extinguisher. In this case I think the trade off was much more beneficial and if you toasted the bike then not as bad on the wallet as bike was $10-20k versus a $30-60k car.

[bannonm]

Originally Posted by Pro Stock John

Hmmm.
Bannonm is basically sharing that he has a car that he races once in a while that had the side air bags go off at an event. I think if I was another racer like him, I'd be pretty concerned.

Yeah John, I am concerned to the point of wondering if I will take this car to the track again. I averaged once a month since March, and even bought a trailer to haul it around. Ironically the first time I used the trailer was when the bags blew.

Originally Posted by rrpilot

I totally understand the issue and the question. My point is that airbags potentially has an issue in sensors and GM should address it.

I think there are some people that still are missing the point of this. I don't believe there is a defect (at least not in my car), the system was designed to work with a stock car. My mistake was not realizing sooner that the Camaro SS is not a sports car, although you can certainly modify it to work better. However, GM didn't design this car so you could turn it into a road course monster. Their safety systems are designed for an everyday driver in stock form. I learned an expensive lesson. Don't modify your car and expect GM to be OK with it when something f*s up. The old saying "gotta pay to play" holds up here. My advice, proceed at your own risk.

As for filing this with my insurance company, it won't fly. I was not on a public road, and my ins. co. doesn't cover this stuff when a car is used in this manner. My wife used to work for them and told me this before I ever went to the track. Fortunately she's be cool with this expensive set back and hasn't given me any grief about tracking in the future.

[Kent2010]

Originally Posted by Pro Stock John

(Snip)

I'm aware of about like 5 instances where air bags have gone off in late model GM cars during autocross and road racing. That's a lot in two years, because I'm not aware of any in 15 years of racing 4th gens.

Respectfully,

John

All the incidents I have read are *side* curtain airbags being deployed without accident in gen5 Camaros while on the track or autocross. I don't think 4th gens had side bags, did they? obviously, if true, that would account for the lack of reports of this kind of incident in 4th gens.

Not trying to be a wise guy... just trying to make sure I understand the scope of the issue and reports.

Cheers,
Kent

[Pro Stock John]

Good point, I don't know if all the reports I've seen with late models have all been side ones, and 4th gens did not have side bags.

[JusticePete]

Pro Stock John

[toehead93]

That reminds me I saw airbags go off in a car that pulled a wheelie at launch. The 4th gen only had two bags, steering wheel and passenger dash.

[dekan513]

i went to school with a girl that had a trailblazer and her airbag deployed on her , while just driving , it busted too, and messed up her face a lil , i think she got like close to 1 million dollers . u would think they would learn their leason on air bags. hell if they cost that much , ill sell u mine , i dont like shit like that no way.

[dekan513]

i also remember seein a video of a cts-v , and on star coming on cause they thought he had been in a crash, but airbags didnt go off. if ur on a track and something mess up ur pretty much screwed. its out of pocket.

[Azzkker]

If you guys are worried about onstar keeping tabs on you when your going to track events and what not, you can unplug the onstar module and it will prevent it from recording gps data. Then once your done plug it back in, of course you will have to re-initialize the onstar module with a onstar button push. Also, as far as air bags go, pulling the fuse is about manditory when tracking to prevent accidental deployment.

[JusticePete]

Originally Posted by Russo

so there is a "competition" mode in the ZL1 and 1LE? why wouldn't that mode disable the airbags?

No.

[Pro Stock John]

I was talking to a GM guy at Indy, and honestly I agreed with him. Once you start running it as a race car, you need to treat it as such.

Personally I would disable the airbags if they are sensitive. But I'm not telling everyone else to do it.

If I made my Camaro a mid 8 second ride and had a parachute, I would not let the airbags work because they could go off when the chute pulls the car to a stop.