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How to deactivated airbags when off roading?
- Thread starter Bo3liwe
- Start date
Billy James
Ram Guru
I don't think that you need to deactivate the airbags for offroading. It takes a really hard hit with some damage to make them go off. Unless you are doing some extreme stuff and jumping; I wouldn't worry about it.
mongol_riding
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I thought the same thing with my Sierra. Until one fateful day, a small ditch across the trail path formed by water run off deployed all curtain airbags. Not that i never beat the truck worse prior to this. Though i blame it on a sensor going faulty.
The Colorado ZR2s have reported issues with side curtain airbags deploying with mild off-roading though. Which is a real issue. I would personally also like to be able to turn them off.
Yedi
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I work in AutoBody. Ive seen some pretty minor/strange things that have set off air bags. If you are that worried about it, just pull the fuse. Anytime the Air Bag light is on in the dash, the system is disabled. A lot of people drive around with a bad sensor or something minor and don't realize that the bags are disabled, and its not just that annpoying light.
grinch72
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Is that on the ATX4? I test drove a fully load 2019 before I got my ram and that wasn't there!
(KUWAIT) dealer
ya3coub
Active Member
Your dealers are the best when it comes to GMC and Chevey’s
What about the ram do you have any idea how to disable it,
Fourth & 5th Gen i have both trucks and as the season gets closer offroading time is close and I don’t want to risk it
So far I did not find a way or solution.
You can add me on instagram @ramkuwait
ya3coub
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Zietsmph
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I have noted that fuse 28 is for the ORC unit and I hoped that pulling that would deactivate the airbags, but I have now seen that the Owners Manual says that the ORC unit has a backup battery. Does any one know whether pulling the fuse will deactivate the airbags? If the backup battery will still keep it going even after you pulled a fuse, does anyone know how long the backup battery will last?
boogielander
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there's no need for that. GM is the only brand that I've seen having side airbags deploy while offroading. In fact, saw 2 GMC Canyons side airbag deployed while being slightly off camber and the trucks are totaled.
ya3coub
Active Member
Mine is 2019 and my friend behind me pn a 4th gen both cars had the side airbags Nd the seat deployed last year.
Actually you can deploy them with no impact at all. There's a video somewhere of a guy doing donuts in a parking lot. He switches from one direction to the next and you hear the bags deploy. As he stops, you can see they clearly fired off the side airbags, and there was no hit at all, much less a hard one.
Not a faulty sensor either. Modern air bags are not controlled by those old contact sensors like they used to be.
So what's really happening?
On modern vehicles the airbags are controlled by an Airbag Control Module (ACM). This is usually bolted somewhere near the center of the vehicle. Typically it's found on/in the center tunnel between the front seats. They used to be aluminum, but some are plastic now, but they're pretty easy to identify because they're secured with 3 bolts (this assures they are mounted the correct direction).
These modules are monitoring a lot of systems. The newer the car the more stuff it's reading. Among the stuff it's monitoring is yaw, pitch, roll, speed, seatbelt usage, steering, etc. There are very complex calculations going on analyzing the data (typically in 0.1 second intervals).
The simplified version is that if the vehicle detects a Delta V that exceeds a given value over a given time, it assumes you're about to roll, have been struck in the side or have some other emergency which may result in the occupant(s) striking the side windows, pillars, etc. To prevent possible injury the side curtain airbags will deploy.
It's not a defective sensor because multiple sensors are feeding data to the system, nor is it required to be an impact. It's just a matter of what the vehicle is doing, and the potential implications that movement means to the occupants. The only way to prevent a deployment is to disable the system. Either cut power to it via the fuse, or unplug the harness altogether. And unplugging is not easy because they're often under the carpet, or console, etc. They're intentionally not out in the open where they'd be easy to get to.
Off camber turns are a very good way to tell the system you're in trouble and cause the airbags to deploy. This isn't exclusive to GM products, so be careful.
And yes, airbag deployment will frequently total a vehicle because they're extremely expensive to replace. Well, professionally anyway. Bags themselves aren't excessively expensive. Neither is the ACM, which would also need replaced after a deployment event because it locks itself down after it fires off the airbags. However, the liability and time involved in replacing everything jacks the price up quite a bit.
boogielander
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at that particular spot where the bags deployed it was at most a 10 degree bank. All other brands went through with no issues: Toyota/ Lexus, Ram, Ford, and Mitsubishi
It's only GM product that went kaboom there. We all took the same line.
They may (and probably do) have the parameters set differently than the others. Or maybe the GM's were going faster, breaking harder, have softer suspensions with more body roll, locked a wheel the others didn't, etc. There's a lot of variables that are considered, not just the angle.
I'm not saying the GM isn't potentially programmed with values that are more likely to trigger deployment (it sounds like they may be). It's quite possible they are, or maybe the GM was closer to tipping over whereas the others weren't. I'm just saying that other vehicles aren't immune to a deployment off road. It's something you want to consider when you go out to play.
I'm not saying the GM isn't potentially programmed with values that are more likely to trigger deployment (it sounds like they may be). It's quite possible they are, or maybe the GM was closer to tipping over whereas the others weren't. I'm just saying that other vehicles aren't immune to a deployment off road. It's something you want to consider when you go out to play.
