Safe Car

[Bob D]

The other day my wife was in a accident 3 car and car passed her last control crossed the center lane high speed hit a pickup truck and that truck came back aross the center and went in front of the Z4 took the front off just the bumper never hit the steel I beam 7000 damage. Wife was OK car one year old next week. The air bags never went off talked with a couple of folks about that they said shw was not hit hard and in the right places for them to go off? so far the only damage hood and front end which can be replaced the Ins. co is replacing the hood and front end the body shop where the car is is A 1 BMW fixer I will pst photos later. Long and short that car is a safe one that steel I beam is a live safer.

[Rick Hunter]

It's always a heartdropper whenever I hear of these things happening. Nice to hear your wife's OK.

[Z4thewin]

my friend was in a pretty bad accident the other day and the air bags didn't go off either.. hopefully your car won't be in the shop too long..

[Bob D]

Boby shop says about two weeks but I think 3 you know how that is

[ZElephant]

really sorry to hear this i hope your wife is ok and everything gets sorted fast

[epbrown]

I'm glad your wife was okay. I agree that aribags are weird: Memorial Day weekend one of my cousins loaned her 18 year-old nephew her car. We've resigned ourselves to the fact we'll never get the true story out of him and his version doesn't make a damn bit of sense, but he had an accident and her car needed a new front bumper, both fenders, headlights, foglights, radiator and radiator mounts, and new hood. The airbags never deployed, despite the fact both he and his friend hit their heads on the dash, though they only got bumps from that. It's weird just how much impact it seems to take to deploy those things. According to my cousin, the fact that the airbags didn't go off was the determining factor in her insurance company not totaling out the car.

[Bob D]

Here are some photos

[Dammmittt]

That's painful man...

[IQ-Man]

I'm glad your wife is Ok!

The Z4 is a very safe car. Here you find an european crash test (made by the EuroNCAP - European New Car Assessment Program).

http://www.euroncap.com/tests/bmw_z4_2004/186.aspx


click for larger img

"The Z4 is a very strong scoring four-star car. It suffered very little damage to its cabin, the driver’s door remaining straight and substantially undamaged after the impact. The car was tested in the frontal crash with its roof down to give ‘worst-case’ results. Similarly, for the side impact, the top was left up to check for any adverse interaction with the driver’s head. Because the car has only two seats, it was tested without child restraints. However, it is possible to fit a restraint to the passenger’s seat so, the fitting and labelling requirements were checked. Protection for pedestrians proved to be fair.

Front impact
The restraint system is based on a dual stage non-tethered airbag for the driver and for the passenger. Each has a belt pre-tensioner that, combined with load limiters worked well at keeping forces on occupants’ chests low. Late in the impact, the driver’s head moved towards the outside of the airbag, making a glancing contact with the screen pillar. The car’s body proved itself to be very strong, showing minimal deformation of the body structure around the sill and screen pillar and suffering only minor intrusion into the footwell. However, the knee impact areas for the driver were unforgiving, with hard structures abounding.

Side impact
The protection system is very impressive and includes a thorax airbag that worked well. The driver’s head contacted the roof rail, but not hard enough to cause concern."