Worrying fact about my mg5

[Harves]

Hi people I bought my mg5 in March then 3weeks ago I had a accident unfortunately my fault first time in 30 years but the worrying thing about the accident was I was travelling at approximately 40-50mph and hit the car in front who stopped suddenly the front of my car is a complete mess but none of the airbags went off could not believe it

 

[Iain]

Hi Harves, Sorry about your accident, I hope no injuries.
A bit concerning regarding the air bags not activating, it is something we hope we never have the need for but no way to test! Regards, Iain

 

[Harves]

Cheers Iain, luckily no one was injured every body ok but could not understand why the airbags didn’t activate

 

[Nick W]

Glad you were all OK.
It's difficult to judge as of course I don't know the circumstances, but as you were all OK it suggests that not deploying the airbags was appropriate. Airbags are not pleasant; bruising, abrasions are common as you'd expect from being hit by the bag or the plastic covers and broken bones and eye injuries have happened. So calibrating the sensors is a judgment call and it sounds as if MG might have set them correctly.

5 Most Common Airbag Injuries - AICA Atlanta

Airbags help lower the risk of hitting your body during a car accident. But, they don't come without risk and can often lead to their own kinds of injury.

chiropractoratlanta.com

 

[Alb]

Best to raise your concerns when the car is repaired regardless.
You don't want to have any doubts about this.

 

[Harves]

I will be asking the mg dealer when the insurance company finally start to get the car repaired

 

[Les burrows]

Hi people I bought my mg5 in March then 3weeks ago I had a accident unfortunately my fault first time in 30 years but the worrying thing about the accident was I was travelling at approximately 40-50mph and hit the car in front who stopped suddenly the front of my car is a complete mess but none of the airbags went off could not believe it

Hi Harves sorry to hear your bad news and hope you and any passengers are unhurt
Worrying indeed I have a question for you, was the car in front moving when you run into it the reason I ask is the front of modern cars is a great big Crumple Zone and that plus the momentum may have not been Severe enough to trigger the sensors for the airbags even though you car was badly damaged as you say as it crumples up its reduces most of the shock and a lot of the impact I have no idea but this may be the reason why have you any pictures? You can share.
Les

 

[Harves]

This is the only picture I’ve got

 

[Harves]

Sorry Les yes the car in front was moving it happened on the A1

 

[Harves]

This is the only picture I have

 

[Alb]

Having seen that, I wouldn't be surprised if the airbags weren't triggered.

 

[Les burrows]

This is the only picture I have

Hi harves , thanks for the pictures so the thing is with that your insurance might well write that off because as the air bags did not deploy they may get a good price for the car in that state not to hard to fix for the Salvage guys but if the bags had deploy they would get much less as the bags are quite expensive to replace

Now a bit of advice if you took out Gap insurance then you should get a good chunk of your money back but if you didn’t do Gap then check your insurance policy carefully as some insurance companies include a type of Gap that replaces the car on a like for like basses for the first year mine does and I’m with LV so Check your small print.

Please let us know how you get on and good luck
Les

 

[5teep]

Having been on the receiving end of an airbag I can say it hurts! Not as much as the steering wheel might admittedly but it left welts on my arms that took ages to fade.
From your picture it looks like the impact was higher up and missed the trigger for the bags, not sure if that's good or bad.

 

[ArfurM]

Having been on the receiving end of an airbag I can say it hurts! Not as much as the steering wheel might admittedly but it left welts on my arms that took ages to fade.
From your picture it looks like the impact was higher up and missed the trigger for the bags, not sure if that's good or bad.

Glad no-one was badly injured, and yeah, air-bags ain't fun! One thing, as Steep says, the high impact looks like you "rode under" the vehicle you hit (obviously not, as it was a car, not a lorry), I'm surprised the impact hadn't completely shattered the front grill; the area below the top of the number plate seems fairly intact. Perhaps the "deflected energy" that folded up the bonnet meant the G-force wasn't sufficient to trigger the 'bags? In the US, home of the air-bag, the original 1974 specification required maximum decelerations of 36g to deploy; this was amended in 1998 to 60g. Not sure about the EU, but I'd be surprised if it's much different.

Right, assumption time: If you weigh 75kg, and decelerate from 45-0mph in 100ms (a tenth of a second), you would pull 20.5g (well below a'bag trigger threshold), which feels like being hit with 1538kg....


....So I wouldn't worry about the bags, looks like the crumple zone did its job..

 

[JoOLS]

The bonnet certainly sucked up a fair bit of the energy. Windscreen being intact does demonstrate that the crash energy went through the sides of the car.

 

[Adee]

So sorry to hear that. You'll see from another thread that I bent the wing on mine after 1000miles of ownership, and also after 35yrs of driving. It shakes your confidence but you've got to get back on with it. It happens to everyone sooner or later. Must be something about these cars

Regarding the damage, I agree with Arf that, like all accident damage, it look worse than it is. Since you all survived and presumably with little injury, then I suspect the airbags did what they were supposed to do - i.e. not deploy.

 

[ArfurM]

like all accident damage, it look worse than it is

..to add to that, perhaps the impact wasn't as severe as the dramatically loud bang that was experienced, and front damage, implied.. BTW what's the 5's NCAP rating?

 

[Chrispydoc]

Glad you were OK ......You may (or probably may not!). recall that the main reasons I didn't buy the MG5 after my test drive, was the lack of emergency braking, compared to my ZS EV.

I am getting to age now where I like having some automatic backups, just incase! ......but of course, like your airbags....they do need to actually work!!

 

[Les burrows]

This is the only picture I have

Hi again looking again at this thread and your pictures and what others have said it does seem a Strange one the damage I mean you don’t say what you run into you only say a car what was that car make model might it have been a pick-up type vehicle just out of interest that’s all.
Les

 

[Alb]

The MG5 does have EBA.