DaPhoenix68

Last Friday, I bought are used 2018 prestige Q7 and was very happy with it. Come Sunday afternoon, I was involved in an accident (everyone involved was safe).

The interesting thing was that the accident was a frontal, taking out the driver side headlamp and going all the way back to the driver side front wheel. Interestingly enough, the airbags did not deploy, is this normal or was the vehicle faulty to begin with?

By the way, the lady that pulled up in front of me causing the collision was given a ticket for failure to Yield while entering a major highway.

Curious why the airbag did not deploy.

mhoran89

I am not a crash investigator, nor am I all that scientific, but have some knowledge of things.
In a frontal crash (head on) there is a sensor near the radiator that senses an impact and deceleration that sets off the front and (usually all airbags). In a side impact collision, usually only side curtain air bags would go off to protect you from smacking a pillar or window.

In your case, there is a bunch of damage, but it appears the cars clipped and you mainly crunched the quarter panel and all the plastic you could between the bumper and door. I am sure it felt substantial when it happened, but the car did not see a large enough decellerative (don't know if that is even a word) event to trigger the airbags going off. If all of you are fine, it is actually better to not have them go off as they do typically deploy hot and can burn skin they touch since they deploy explosively. Airbags that go off when they do not need to actually do more harm than good. The cars are made to crunch and collapse. All the plastic in the front of these modern cars just disintegrates so that the actual structural crumple zones can do their work properly.

Glad to see you and everyone involved is safe. With car values these days your car might not have suffered enough damage to be totaled. If there is no damage to the front support under the fender and it is as simple as replacing radiator support, bumper, headlight, fender, hood, driver assist sensors, recalibration of systems, paint, etc. then the car might be repairable. Especially because no air bags were deployed. Trim is a one-way thing and when airbags deploy they are expensive to replace and lots of things on the inside are going to need attention, let alone the exterior repairs.

DaPhoenix68

This makes a lot of sense although contrary to what my expectations where based on the impact.
I’m enlightened.
Thanks for the feedback.

mhoran89

No problem. I would like to see others chime in, and I am sure they will.
I have luckily not had too many of these experiences, but when I have, they have been strictly cosmetic. Expensive repairs but that's the nature of cars these days.

SVJ

I am not surprised. I totalled my previous car (Subaru) with similar damages and not a single airbag went off.

DaPhoenix68

Thanks for sharing, totaling the car is based on the value of the vehicle versus the value of the damage. I am concerned, that despite the damage to my vehicle because the value of the vehicle maybe so high that it may be still worthwhile to repair it. I’m still waiting to hear the verdict from the insurance company.

SVJ

I don't know the insurance companies' formula for declaring vehicle a total loss, but I imagine the repair estimate would have to be more than $35K for them to do it. Q7s are expensive to repair damage, as I recently found out. My insurance paid ~$1K for rear bumper/tail light damage. That being said, unless there's a structural damage somewhere, they will just repair it. Not a big deal, I bought my 2017 Q7 Prestige repaired after similar accident that happened when the car had 44 (forty four) miles on it, judging from the CarFax report. It drives just like any other Q7 I drove at a dealership.

DaPhoenix68

Thanks for sharing this. I feel much better, it took me almost three months to find this Prestige Model.

SYMAWD

As stated above, based on the location of the impact and sensor data, the car determined that there was no need for an airbag deployment. Also, airbags are a nice little explosion, you really don't want them going off anyway unless it is necessary. So unless you hit your head on the steering wheel, there's no reason to worry about them not deploying. My e-tron was in a similar accident and there was no airbag deployment, which again, likely wasn't necessary. They did end up totaling mine.

DaPhoenix68

Oh wow. Thanks for sharing, I’ll count my blessings that it did not deploy then - it could have been much worse. My doctor recommends physio for the the next eight weeks and the orthopedic surgeon has ordered MRIs for my left shoulder based on the pain in my arm and shoulder. It could have been much worse if the airbag deployed then…