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Originally Posted by ppgroup
Don't know if it is true because the saleman told me it and I don't know if a salesman can tell the truth about anything, but anyway... He said that the airbags will operate for up to 10 minutes after the car is turned off. He said in most cars, the airbags do not work after the ingition is shut off.
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Sorry for the long winded reply. You could say I'm an airbag

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Ahhh, another great salesperson creation! Yes, the system will operate if the ignition is cut off... but it operates this way in all systems (at least all I'm aware of). The purpose is for multiple collisions. Say, for example, you're hit on the side and it disables the engine. The front airbag will most likely not deploy on a side collision. Perhaps your car keeps rolling, and then impacts a wall head-on. The bag will deploy on this secondary collision. This is because the airbag controller stores the needed voltage (I believe it's a 36 volt charge) for use in subsequent collisions... so even if the battery (regular 12v) is disabled in the initial crash, the bags can still deploy.
I don't know about 10 minutes, though. Not too likely you'd be in your car for ten minutes with the ignition off and get into a crash! The only possible scenario I could think of would be if you were parked and someone crashed into you. In that case, I still don't know if the bags would deploy.
Airbags are designed to go off ONLY if very specific criteria are met. Airbags are dangerous, so they only want them to deploy if the risk of injury from the bag deployment is worth it (vs. the impact from the crash itself). Bags will typically only deploy if the impact speed is 12
mph or greater, the impact is within a certain number of degrees off the centerline (front won't deploy in a side collision). There are multiple "g" sensors (usually three) which must ALL indicate a crash of sufficient force before the controller deploys the bag. All systems I know of also use gold plated connectors to ensure a good connection. Now you know the facts!