I was looking at this pic at the very bottom of this link at this site and I was surprised that the side airbag on the Volvo 850s seems to be ONLY a single chamber thorax side airbag.
- posted
19 years ago
I was looking at this pic at the very bottom of this link at this site and I was surprised that the side airbag on the Volvo 850s seems to be ONLY a single chamber thorax side airbag.
Regardless of the style of airbags, I think most will agree that a '95 850 is a significantly safer car than a Passat, I know I'd rather be in one. No amount of airbags can replace a well designed passenger cage.
Well the Passat is quite a good car too (unless the 98 is an old style Passat...) for impacts - VW's are safe cars... But didn't that style of 850 even have a life insurace if you actually died in one?
Also weren't they one of the first cars with the side airbags?
Personally I would say he shouldn't be driving at all, if his own safety is of such great concern I have to wonder what his thoughts on the safety of others are.
"James Sweet" skrev i meddelandet news:G5YSc.16373$ snipped-for-privacy@nwrddc03.gnilink.net...
And I would seriously consider moving out if you cant by a car of your choice with yr own money..........
There is always the option of wearing a helment.
I drive a 1990 745T. It has a driver's side airbag only. If the damn thing deploys, I'm going to put in a '89 steering wheel w/o the airbag and keep rolling. I feel that I would be safer in an older brick w/o an airbag, than many newer smaller cars with airbags all around. The most important thing about an accident is to avoid it in the first place. But, it's his money and his parents decision. Just my .02.
Rolling down the road in my 1990 745T, 260K miles.
BTW, before I started driving Volvos, I totaled 3 other cars, so I know a little bit about accidents from practical experience. The main thing I have noticed is that when I started driving my first Volvo, a 1975 245, other drivers on the road gave me MUCH more respect on the road. I am NEVER more afraid than when driving a friends Mitsi Mirage to the corner store.
Volvo's give you that "king of the road" type feeling, lesser cars flee from the left hand lane and such... They're good.
For the really safety obsessed there's always the full roll cage, 5 point harness and a helmet. How many race cars have you seen that have airbags? I've seen videos of dozens of high speed crashes in rally races, most of the time the driver walks away.
I'd definitly go for the 850 T5, the S40 just doesn't do it for me, just doesn't feel like a Volvo. I'd love to have a T5-R wagon but those don't grow on trees, and as you say, it's hard to find one that hasn't been abused.
I myself would put the Passat in the same league as the 850/S70 in terms of safety. They have pretty similar injury rates and while the S70s do better than the Passat in side impacts, the Passats seem to do better in front and front offset crashes than the S70/850, and the Passats also actually have to have a stronger safety cage in the front offset test. The thing I'm afraid of is that I don't think that 1998-2000 Passats have head protecting Side Air Bags either, I think they probably just have torso protecting Thorax Side Airbags just like the 1995 850 to the 1998 S70. If I remember correctly, I think the 99 S70 was the first car in the
850/S70 series that had a dual chamber side airbag that protected both the torso and the head. The IIHS website had info on which cars had HEAD PROTECTING side airbags on models as early as 2001, but unfortunately it had no info on years earlier than that.I just wish I could see a video clip of an inside view of a side impact crash test of an 850 equipped with SIPS bags since that would help me determine if the it would be worth it to get an 850 or go for something else. I've seen a whole bunch of video clips of side impact crash test as well as side impact poll tests, and the most impressive I've ever seen was the poll test of the 1999 S80. I mean it was incredible how much more gentle the "bounce" of the head off of the side curtain airbag was compared to all the other crash videos I had seen of other cars.
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